Cadmian's Choice

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “You’ve never seen any sign of the ancients? Has anyone?”

  “I’m convinced that the few survivors must visit unseen. I’ve occasionally sensed Talent of a type neither we nor even the wild Talents of landers possess.”

  Dainyl could sense the shading of the truth. “Occasionally?” His tone was both dry and suggestive.

  Jonyst paused, looking at Dainyl. Then he nodded. “That’s right. You ran into an ancient in Dramur, didn’t you?”

  How had the recorder known that? “I did.”

  “It’s more than occasional, but not all that often. I tell everyone it’s occasional, though. You understand why, I trust.”

  Dainyl did. “The alectors who like Dereka are those who have less Talent or who are less Talent-receptive?”

  “That’s generally so—except for the regional alector and his senior assistants. The building where they work is built partly on a dead zone. There are a number in this area. They thought that would discourage any ancients. It did. It also ages alectors far more quickly. So the term for a regional alector here is only five years. It’s said that Samist once sent someone who schemed against him here for fifteen years. The fellow died a year after he left.”

  “I can’t say that I’d heard that.”

  “Few have. It was a good hundred years back.”

  “The Duarch Samist generally appoints the RA here?” asked Dainyl.

  “Samist appoints the RA here. Khelaryt does Lysia. Samist appointed Yadaryst last year. He’s a cousin of some sort, translated from Ifryn maybe ten years back.”

  Dainyl nodded.

  “In the end, it probably won’t matter. Besides, no one really wants to think about Dereka.”

  “Why not? Because it’s linked to the ancients? And because of strange occurrences here?”

  “There are strange occurrences everywhere.”

  “It’s the only place where large numbers of skylances have vanished. Could that have been the work of the ancients? Or is there another explanation?”

  Jonyst fingered his square chin. “It had to be a wild lander Talent or an ancient. Wild alector Talents don’t last long here.”

  “What about the five alectors who disappeared without a trace? Do you think the ancients had anything to do with them?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “You don’t think so, I take it?”

  “All five had recently been translated from Ifryn. They were traveling across Corus taking lifeforce measurements for the Archon. These days, that could be a dangerous occupation.”

  “It could, depending on what they discovered.”

  Jonyst looked intently at Dainyl. “What do you think their measurements showed?”

  “From what I’ve seen, total lifeforce on Acorus is behind what was planned and expected.”

  “Just so. Like it was any great surprise.” Jonyst snorted, then abruptly turned and walked to the formal exit door. He released the first Talent-lock and opened the door. Dainyl followed, careful to close the door and replace the Talent-seal before following Jonyst up the stone stairs. The recorder opened the door at the top, then closed it behind Dainyl, replacing the second Talent-lock.

  The two stood in a small foyer that opened into a larger chamber beyond, one with wide windows. The windows, overlooking a boulevard, had extraordinarily low sills set in walls paneled in the same golden wood as the doors, although Dainyl could sense the eternastone walls behind the wood. The room was a library of sorts, he realized, although all the bookcases were set on the inside walls. There were two circular tables, each surrounded by five comfortable chairs.

  “I haven’t seen a recorder’s chambers like these before.”

  “You won’t either. As I told you, they’re not all that practical.” Jonyst laughed softly. His laugh ended abruptly. “We’ll send you off in the carriage. The Myrmidon compound is south of here, and it’s not a short walk.”

  “That I do recall.”

  “I like your wife. I trust her. She’s got good judgment. Don’t make me change my mind.”

  Dainyl managed not to start, although he did blink. “I trust her judgment explicitly.”

  “So I’d heard. Will you be here long?”

  “I’d only planned to be here today.”

  “That’s long enough.” Jonyst turned again. “We’ll have to go the long way to get down to the carriage.”

  Dainyl had to hurry to catch up to the shorter and older recorder. The building had ramps, one of the few in Corus that did, rather than stairs, and the lower ramp led to a low foyer, whose ceiling was less than half a yard above Dainyl’s head.

  “Out through here.”

  Under a portico, clearly added later, waited a carriage.

  “Guersa…take the submarshal where he needs to go, and wait for him.”

  “Yes, sir.” The driver, a blonde lander, nodded.

  “Thank you for the carriage,” Dainyl said politely.

  “It’s the least we can do, Submarshal. I’ll see you later today. Give my best to young Fhentyl.” Jonyst nodded and moved back.

  “That I will.” As he stepped into the carriage, Dainyl glanced back north along the boulevard. In the late-midmorning light, he saw yet another gold eternastone building and, beyond it, the green eternastone tower that marked the major cities of the Duarchy, and a few other locales of import.

  “The Myrmidons, sir?” asked the driver.

  “That’s right.”

  Dainyl sat back in the leather-covered seat, thinking. Sulerya had said Jonyst was independent. The recorder had as much as told Dainyl not to hang around Dereka, and Dainyl didn’t think the warning had much to do with the ancients.

  Samist controlled most of the appointments in Dereka, while Khelaryt controlled those in Lysia. Those were exceptions to the rule, because usually the RA appointments were alternated between the Duarches, and the High Alectors of the six branches appointed their own people to their regional administrations. Why were Lysia and Dereka different? Dainyl had no idea; he hoped Lystrana did.

  The Myrmidon compound was almost a full vingt south of any buildings in Dereka, and its gray stone walls appeared somehow out of place, as did the feeder aqueduct that supplied water. The Cadmian compound was north of the city, Dainyl recalled. Of the eight cities that held both Myrmidon and Cadmian contingents, in half they were geographically separated, and in half they were located adjacent to each other. Was that chance—or plan?

  Dainyl had no idea, nor did he know if that happened to be relevant to anything.

  Guersa brought the carriage to a halt by the gates. “Only you can enter, sir.” Her explanation was apologetic. “I’ll be waiting here until you’re ready to return.”

  “Thank you. It’s likely to be at least a glass. It’s more likely to be two. If you’d like to rest somewhere or get a bite to eat…”

  “You’re sure, sir?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “I’ll be back in a glass, sir.”

  Dainyl turned and walked toward the gates. They were unguarded, as were all Myrmidon gates. The duty messenger saw him and bolted into the headquarters building.

  The few moments it took Dainyl to cross the granite-paved front courtyard and enter the building were enough to alert the post, because a tall alector wearing the uniform of a Myrmidon captain stood in the front foyer waiting for Dainyl.

  “Submarshal Dainyl…I had heard you were touring the companies. I didn’t expect you here so soon.” Captain Fhentyl was one of the youngest Myrmidon captains Dainyl had met. That was obvious, not from his physical appearance, which was impressive, given that he was as tall as Majer Noryan, and muscular, but in a tapered fashion, rather than being bulky and blocklike as Noryan was. Rather his lifeforce and Talent bore the brighter purple of youth. Dainyl concealed a frown. By comparison, Noryan’s lifeforce had seemed not just older, but much older, yet Chelysta had spoken as if Noryan were close to her age.

  “I won’t be here that long,” Dainyl off
ered, “but I haven’t visited Dereka in many years.”

  “We’re pleased to see you. If we had known, sir, we could have provided a more impressive welcome.”

  Dainyl laughed. “I’ve never felt the formal receptions and inspections were worth the effort put into them—either for the officer being greeted or the units that had to provide them.” He paused. “I will inspect, but that will tell me more than prearranged pageantry.”

  “Yes, sir. Right now?”

  “This very moment, but don’t call a formal muster. I’ll inspect as things are. We’ll begin with the pteridon squares.”

  “Very good, sir.” Fhentyl turned toward the rear door from headquarters.

  Dainyl followed the captain.

  The pteridons were in good order, as they always were. So was their equipment.

  The pteridon squares were a good yard shorter than any Dainyl had seen before. After looking over the last square, he stopped and addressed Fhentyl. “The height of the squares…?”

  Fhentyl laughed. “Every officer who hasn’t been stationed here asks. This is the oldest Myrmidon compound. When they built the later ones, they raised the squares a yard and a third. It was either a point of pride or a tradition, but even when the compound was enlarged, they didn’t raise the squares.”

  That was another story Dainyl hadn’t heard.

  “Where do you store the skylances when a squad isn’t flying?”

  “We’ve gone to storing them all in lockers in the duty pteridon’s square. We haven’t lost any more, not since…”

  “You took over?”

  “I doubt if it happened to be that, sir.”

  “You were an undercaptain then. What do you know about the missing skylances?”

  Fhentyl flushed. “Not much, sir. They were here, and then they were gone. We checked everything, even took apart some of the stonework. After the last ones disappeared, Majer Dhenyr had the recorder question every Myrmidon. I don’t know as he had much choice. The regional alector found out…”

  “Was Majer Dhenyr close to the RA?”

  “Close? That’d be hard to say. He went over there maybe once every two weeks to brief him. He never looked happy when he came back. Not that I saw anyway.”

  “Have you briefed Yadaryst?”

  “No, sir. If he asks, I will, but I’d not be one to ask for trouble.” Fhentyl flushed slightly.

  “I take it that the RA is known to be a hard alector?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dainyl decided not to press on the matter of the RA. “What do you think happened to cause the skylances to disappear?”

  Fhentyl glanced northward, back toward Dereka. “I don’t like to say things like this…but what else could it be? A pteridon will kill anyone who intrudes who’s not a Myrmidon. I know—maybe I’m not supposed to—that an ancient can destroy a pteridon. Seems to me that anything that could do that could take a skylance.”

  “That makes sense, except for one thing. If they worried about the skylances as weapons, why would they take a handful and leave the others?”

  “Maybe to make a point, sir?”

  Dainyl frowned. “Then…why did they do so secretly?”

  Fhentyl shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t say, sir. It couldn’t be to copy them, because they don’t work except with a pteridon.”

  Dainyl stiffened inside. He’d need to check the dates, but Fhentyl’s suggestion had triggered another possibility. Maybe the ancients had another motive. “No one’s lost any since the last one turned up missing here.”

  “No, sir.” Fhentyl flushed. “I mean, you’d know more than I would, sir.”

  “We’ll have to think about it. Now…you can show me the armory.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Even as quickly as they were moving, Dainyl could see that Guersa would have plenty of time for a meal—and still a long wait.

  27

  Because Dainyl had a little time, after he finished his inspection of the Myrmidon compound, he had Guersa give him a brief tour around Dereka.

  As they drove up the boulevard, the driver pointed to her left—due west. “That’s the engineers’ complex. Everyone else under the RA is in the main building. Well…except for the transport people in our building.”

  Dainyl studied the walled enclosure surrounding a paved courtyard and several two-story structures within. “Why do the engineers have a separate place?”

  “It was always that way, they say. It could be because they had to widen the roads. It was a real effort to put the road through the Upper Spine Mountains. All the land around it is dead. Almost nothing grows there. Then, they had to repair the aqueduct…well…reassemble the section the cliff fell on, and build the extension down to the Myrmidon compound. There’s no water—even from wells—anywhere near Dereka.”

  That didn’t seem to justify a separate establishment—especially since the High Alector of Engineering served Samist, and the RA was appointed by the Duarch of Ludar. But then, reflected Dainyl, half of the other regional administrative heads were not.

  Farther northward, the driver pointed to her right at a massive structure surrounded by goldenstone walls. “That’s the building where the RA and the other administrators work.”

  To Dainyl’s eye, the building looked more like a palace, except for the modest extension to the rear, barely visible.

  The rest of Dereka was laid out in much the same fashion as any other Duarchial city, with wide streets coming off the two main boulevards, and dwellings and shops all constructed of stone. The roofs were of split dark slate, rather than tile. From what Dainyl could see on his brief tour, the most visible remnants of the ancients were the three golden eternastone buildings, the aqueduct, and several walls, and those had clearly been modified and rebuilt.

  He paused. The ancients’ structures were their form of eternastone. What had been strong enough to adapt and modify them? Or were they far, far older than they appeared, and their strength had waned?

  Guersa eased the carriage to a halt outside the building that held the Table. “Here you are, sir.”

  “Thank you. I appreciated the tour—and your waiting for me.”

  “That’s what drivers are for, sir.”

  “Thank you, anyway.” Dainyl offered a parting smile before heading inside.

  Jonyst met Dainyl in the low-ceilinged foyer, barely a glass before sunset. “How did your day go, Submarshal?” The recorder’s eyes and mouth held the hint of a smile.

  “Generally as expected. I thank you for the loan of your driver and carriage. Guersa made matters much easier.”

  “I’m glad that we could help.” Jonyst started up the ramp.

  “I do appreciate it.” Dainyl followed, not saying more until they were back in the library room that overlooked the boulevard.

  “Fhentyl told me that Majer Dhenyr had you interview all the Myrmidons after the last skylance vanished—and that none of them could have been involved.”

  “I’d doubt it. There’s always the possibility of Talent-tampering, but that leaves signs as well. I didn’t detect anything like that.” The recorder cleared his throat. “An extremely Talented alector might have been able to do it.”

  Dainyl laughed, softly. “I’d wager that you’ve never run across any that Talented.”

  “There’s always a first time for anything, Submarshal. That’s a good thought to keep in mind. There are more than a few alectors who died because they saw something and didn’t believe it could happen.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I imagine you can. That’s one reason why you’re a submarshal and still alive.”

  Dainyl mentally noted the order in which Jonyst had mentioned the two items.

  “How is your wife these days?”

  “We’re expecting a daughter,” Dainyl said. “So far they’re both doing well. Lystrana has to watch what she eats, though.”

  “Good to hear. Daughter will need the best from both of you. Good shields, especiall
y.”

  “They said we’ll be getting more translations from Ifryn.”

  “We already are. Not all of them approved. More wild translations than I’ve seen in years.”

  “How are they getting access to Tables on Ifryn?”

  Jonyst shrugged. “How does anyone?”

  “Corrupt recorders or High Alectors,” suggested Dainyl. “Or stealth and Talent?”

  “All three, but generally the second. When life is at stake…”

  “You expect to see more wild translations, then?”

  Jonyst nodded slowly. “I’d be certain of it.” Then he offered a smile. “Shouldn’t trouble you or Lystrana. We need to get you back to Elcien.” He turned toward the foyer outside the top of the staircase down to the Table chamber, releasing the Talent-lock on the door as he did. Without looking back, he headed down the stairs.

  Dainyl glanced around the library a last time, sensing the serenity of the chamber, then started downward, after closing the door and replacing the Talent-lock.

  Jonyst had left the door open at the base of the steps and stood beside the Table.

  Dainyl joined him. “I just realized that I haven’t seen any of your assistants.”

  “You won’t. I keep them busy. Whelyne is the only one who could take my place, and one of us is always here. You might see her, but not me. The other way around, also.”

  Dainyl concentrated on recalling the assistant’s name—Whelyne. He noted that the concealed doorway to the hidden chambers was closed—and that without his Talent, he would have had absolutely no chance of discovering that those chambers even existed. “The hidden chambers for recorders were planned from the beginning, I take it?”

  “Old as I am, Submarshal, I wasn’t around then. The first Tables were placed in a hurry, with crude enclosures over pits in the ground. They were as cold as the tubes themselves. Paeylt claimed that some of the chill came because the Tables absorbed the ambient cold. Dereka was among the last because they had to cut into the stone. But you’re partly right. Dereka was also the first besides Lyterna that was provided a more finished area. That was also before my time. We’ve done what we could since then.”