“You could always just go see Halanat first,” suggested Feran. “From what you’ve said, he’s the one who’s been supplying more of the goods to us. Then if he won’t see you in person…you do what you have to.”
“I’d already thought that, but I was interested in what you think. I don’t like the idea of the two most powerful factors in Dekhron avoiding me, as if I didn’t even exist, or that the Northern Guard doesn’t matter.”
“To them, it probably doesn’t, except for the coins they get.” Feran’s laugh was low and harsh.
Alucius nodded.
“If you go, I’d suggest an escort,” Feran added. “Four lancers, at least.”
“That’s too many. Two. Two makes it look as though I’m just self-important. Four suggests I’m afraid, and that’s not good.”
“Fear is sometimes wise,” Feran said sagely, before his somber face broke into a grin.
“I’d agree, but showing it is not.”
“You are wearing nightsilk still, I hope.”
“Wendra brought me two new sets and a stronger vest. She said I’d worn out the old ones.”
“You probably did.”
Alucius nodded. Wendra had made that point by putting her knife through the chest of one of the older undergarments. She’d also packed the old ones in with Alendra’s clothes so that Alucius wouldn’t be tempted to wear them. She’d said that she could use the heavy shears and tailor the unstressed nightsilk into a jacket for Alendra. They both had understood that need, because Alendra would have to accompany Wendra out on the stead at least some of the time. Alucius worried about that as well. It seemed that the older he got, the more worries he had.
“When will you try to see Halanat?” asked Feran.
“Tomorrow. The sooner we find out where we stand on all this, the sooner we can work out a better budget and plan for the rest of the year and next year.”
“I’m glad you got all that herder training on how to handle coins.” Feran shook his head as he stood. “It’s easier to deal with the Matrites than ledgers. For me, anyway.” He gave a last smile as he left Alucius’s study.
Alucius looked at the stacks of paper. He hoped he could finish up with them in the next week. Then he could get back to working with Feran on more ways to improve the Guard. But…without coins and supplies, they couldn’t do that, either.
117
On Septi, under a clear silver green sky, promising spring, with the sun nearing midmorning, Alucius rode out of the Northern Guard headquarters. With him rode Roncar and Dhaget. He wished he could ride alone, but he’d promised both Feran and Wendra that he’d take an escort when he could.
He was glad to be out and riding. After only two weeks as colonel, he was restless. Was he too young to be a headquarters officer? Too much of a herder to spend so many glasses behind a desk? He snorted. Did nightrams have sharp horns? Was the Aerlal Plateau high? Was winter at Blackstear cold?
For all his restlessness, though, he had a job to do, and if he didn’t do it and do it well, he might never get back to being a herder. He shifted his weight in the saddle and continued riding toward the river.
Halanat’s factorage and warehouse were just opposite the wharves on the River Vedra, almost a vingt west of the White Bull. Whether he’d find Halanat there, he didn’t know, but it was likely that if he didn’t, he’d learn more by visiting the warehouse. He might even find out more from Halsant. Although Alucius had his doubts about that, he thought he should try if Halanat didn’t happen to be there.
Once beyond the headquarters gates, Alucius turned the big chestnut to the right and followed the unmarked avenue toward the trading district, one part of Dekhron that he had never visited.
The factor’s warehouse was clearly marked—HALANAT & SONS—with a recently painted signboard over a building that was old but had been kept in repair. A heavy wagon was being unloaded through the dock on the west side. Both the signpost and the wagon bore a painted image of a silver wheel.
A silver wheel—the design mentioned by the women in Hyalt. That gave Alucius a most uneasy feeling as he reined up in front.
“Do you want us to accompany you, sir?” asked Fewal.
“No. Just wait here. I don’t think I’ll be that long.” Alucius dismounted and handed the chestnut’s reins to Fewal.
Alucius stepped up onto the narrow porch, opened the heavy oak door, and paused. Inside the cavernous warehouse there was little light, save that coming from the open loading door on the north side of the west end and from the pair of barred and narrow windows flanking the front door. Pallets, bales, and amphorae were neatly placed in rows along the stone floor, but without signs or labels. While there was a slight mustiness to the air, there was surprisingly little dust.
Alucius caught sight of several figures beside the loading door and started down the space between two rows of bales toward them. Two men were rolling a hogshead farther inside the warehouse. The third, who had been watching the unloading, turned—Halsant.
“Colonel…I can’t say I expected to see you here. Unless you’re on stead business, and, in that, I certainly can’t help you. You know we don’t handle nightsilk.”
“I understand that you never have,” Alucius replied. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“Oh…?”
“You seem to be doing well these days.” Alucius gestured back at the goods stacked in the warehouse.
“As well as can be expected.” After a pause, Halsant asked, “What did you want?”
“Actually, I was looking for your father.”
“You know…he’s not that involved in the factoring these days.”
Alucius smiled politely. “I understood that as well. A number of people have suggested I should talk to him.”
Halsant’s eyes flicked from Alucius toward the windows though which the two lancers could be seen and back to Alucius. “Oh?”
“Yes.” Alucius waited.
The trader shook his head and shrugged. “That’s your business, then. He should be in his study at the house.”
“Thank you.” Alucius started to turn, then stopped. “I didn’t want to ask when I met with the Traders’ Council the other day, but could you tell me something about it? Why it was created?”
“Not much to say. Once the Lord-Protector dissolved the old council, none of us really met. We decided we still needed to tell each other what was happening…the way the traders do in southern Lanachrona. We were stumbling all over each other…cost a lot of golds. It’s more like an exchange, not really a council.”
“I take it you become one of those most involved with it?”
“I’ve been going to the meetings. Most of us have. I suppose I have more to say than some. We’ve had to go farther and farther in our trading.”
“I noticed the silver-wheel emblem. Is that just yours, or do all the traders in Dekhron use that? I could have missed it, but I don’t recall seeing it before.”
“It’s ours, but it’s new in the last few years. Once we started going south, we decided we needed an emblem, something that would make us easier to recognize. It’s not a name, not something tied to the north, you know?”
“That makes sense,” Alucius said.
Halsant looked toward the loading dock. “If you’ll excuse me…”
Alucius smiled. “I’m not that familiar with Dekhron. I’ve spent most of my time in the Guard and militia out fighting. Could you point me in the direction of your father’s house?”
“Oh…take the avenue north one block, then follow the street west almost to the end. There’s a wagon carved in a plaque by the door.” Halsant nodded and turned.
Alucius watched for a moment before walking back along the row of bales and leaving the warehouse.
Fewal and Dhaget looked at their colonel as Alucius left the warehouse and remounted the chestnut.
“We’re off to see his father, another trader called Halanat. I hope he’s where he should be.” Alucius eased his mount b
ack up the avenue, then westward on the next street.
That street extended a good half vingt to the west before it ended, but even from several hundred yards away, Alucius could Talent-sense the purplish feel that seemed to envelop the two-story dwelling set slightly farther back from the street than the houses on either side. The ornamental shrubs that flanked the wide front porch seemed to droop lack-adaisically, as if winter had been hard on them. The grass was sparse and dying, and not from winterkill.
With no hitching posts in front, Alucius dismounted and handed the chestnut’s reins to Dhaget. “I shouldn’t be all that long, but I’d guess this Halanat might have more to say than his son did.”
The two lancers acknowledged the words with a nod.
Alucius took the two steps up to the covered porch, glanced up at the ancient carved wagon plaque beside the door, then lifted the heavy brass knocker and let it fall. The thud echoed harshly in Alucius’s ears. After several moments, a thin-faced and graying woman, without a dual lifethread but with a heavy purple aura, opened the door. She frowned quizzically.
“Alucius, madam. Halsant said that I could find Halanat here.” He smiled as warmly as he could manage.
“He doesn’t handle the factoring anymore. That’s Halsant, and he’s down on the river.”
“I’m not here about trade,” Alucius replied politely. “I’ve just talked to Halsant, and he suggested I needed to talk to his father…”
“If you must…” With a resigned sigh, she stepped back into the foyer and held the door, inclining her head toward the closed door to her right. “He’s there. As always.”
“Thank you.” Alucius bowed his head briefly, then stepped to the door, behind which he could sense a well of purple. For just a moment, he paused before depressing the door lever and entering the room. He closed the door as he stepped inside.
Halanat sat behind a wide table desk, with stacks of parchment and paper set across the side facing Alucius. The herder saw not one image, but two. His eyes took in a round-faced trader with nondescript brown hair wearing a dark gray tunic trimmed in brilliant blue. His Talent-senses showed him another sight entirely—that of a man whose lifethread had been possessed by an ifrit. That lifethread was not the normal brown or tan or yellow, or even that of a herder—black or black shot with green, or even black shot with purple or pink, or the dual pink and black threads he had seen with the torques of the Matrial. Instead, there was the thinnest of brown threads, a lifethread of Corus. Entwined and twisted around that thin brown thread was a pulsing purpled rope of an ifrit lifethread, and that purpled ropelike thread dwindled southward into the distance, but not all that far, Alucius felt.
Although Alucius had suspected as much from what he had sensed already, he still had to restrain his total shock at seeing the trader so possessed.
“You are bold, Colonel—or should I call you herder?”
“Titles don’t matter. You should know why I’m here.”
A momentary expression of puzzlement crossed Halanat’s face. “I must say that I cannot imagine why—especially alone and without a company of loyal Northern Guards with you.”
“There are several outside.” Alucius nodded slowly. “Even more might have been more prudent after your last effort of some years ago.” He had no proof that the trader had been involved in the attempted assassination effort with more than twenty bravos just after Alucius had been released from the Northern Guard some two years before, but it was worth suggesting.
“What effort?”
“The one that cost you more than two hundred golds,” Alucius replied. “Or have you forgotten? Did all those golds mean so little?”
A cool smile crossed the trader’s lips, but did not reach his eyes. “And you let it pass for so long before suddenly appearing to accuse me of whatever this might have been?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. You know what you did, and I’m saying it.”
“You can say whatever you want,” Halanat stated. “That doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It’s true enough, and now there are wild pteridons roaming the steads. That is also your doing—or that of those working with you. As were the supplies you sent to the prophet, and the excessive number of golds you received in return.”
“That is to be expected. Supplying a rebel can be dangerous…and costly. You expect a factor to risk that for normal rates? Surely, you are not that naive, Colonel.”
“And the wild pteridons?”
“Times are changing.” Halanat rose, still smiling coldly. “Do you wish to leave? You might prevail here, but you cannot stand against what will be.”
Alucius could feel the chill inside himself. How many more of the ifrits had invaded Corus? And how? “Seldom is anything inevitable.”
“Ah…the arrogance of youth.” Halanat continued to smile.
Why didn’t the ifrit attack? Because he knew Alucius could win? Because he was waiting for assistance? What had Alucius done before? After the slightest of hesitations, he sent out a slim Talent-probe, the strongest he could muster.
In return, the Halanat-ifrit hurled a blast of purplish lifeforce at Alucius.
Alucius slipped the purple force aside, in a fashion similar to the way in which he might have handled a sabre slash.
The trader slammed back with another blast of intense purple Talent-force.
Again, Alucius slip-parried it. Then, recalling his training with the soarer, he concentrated on seeking the nodes beneath and within the ifrit lifethread, the thread that was linked to something to the south.
The trader threw up a purpled shield, blocking Alucius’s probe, and reached for a drawer in the table desk.
Alucius formed a golden green wedge of life-Talent and let the force flare around him, then struck once more, aiming at the most prominent node linking the ifrit lifethread to the trader.
Halanat froze for a moment, perspiration bursting out all across his forehead in droplets that flew from his face in all directions.
Alucius slid his probe under the purple shield, twisting and unraveling the smaller lifethreads within the node. As he did, he could sense heat rising in and around him, and sweat popping out on his own forehead. His efforts felt like clumsy fumbling and as though time all around him had slowed to a crawl as his Talent-probe knifed into the node of the ifrit’s lifethread.
Suddenly, the trader’s ifrit thread vanished in a spray of tiny purple threads, and Halanat stood there, wavering on his feet, his eyes widening. His hand twitched, and he pulled a double-barreled pistol from the now-open drawer.
Unable to reach the trader in time, Alucius slashed a second Talent-probe at the trader’s now-unprotected and remaining lifethread node, keeping his lance of golden green tight and focused. With a spray of brown and green, Talent-threads and Talent-shards vanished as they flared into the air.
The pistol clunked dully as it struck the rich Hyaltan carpet. After a moment, Halanat pitched forward and crumpled against the table desk. His lifeless body slid sideways and sprawled across the carpet, covering the pistol.
Alucius stood stock-still, breathing hard. He’d forgotten just how much effort Talent-battles took. He took several more deep breaths before slowly turning. He opened the door to the entry hall carefully, but the foyer was empty. Closing the study door behind him, he crossed the foyer and stepped out onto the porch, then made his way down the stone walk to where the lancers waited with the chestnut.
“Sir?”
“Dealing with factors can be…trying. Everything is in coins. He admitted that they supplied the prophet and was proud of it.”
“Sir?”
“He said that profit was necessary for a trader. I had to tell him that he could no longer expect excessive profit from the Guard. There wasn’t much more that I could say.” Alucius wiped his still-sweating forehead, then took the reins from Dhaget and mounted. “He was rather agitated when I left. Most agitated.” Alucius forced a crooked smile. “That was the least I could do und
er the circumstances.”
He guided the chestnut back eastward on the long street, back toward Northern Guard headquarters. Much as he disliked the idea, he needed to find Tarolt before long, but he had no idea exactly where to begin.
He’d have to claim, if anyone accused him, that he and Halanat had argued, and that Halanat had pulled the pistol and gotten so agitated that his heart had just stopped. But, somehow, he doubted that anyone would say anything.
Alucius took another long breath and blotted his forehead once more. He’d hoped otherwise, but he had known that there was always the possibility that the ifrits would return. And it was clear that their return was linked to the prophet—and possibly to the Regent of the Matrial. He just didn’t know how—or how many ifrits there were, or where.
118
Northeast of Iron Stem, Iron Valleys
Wearing her vest over a long-sleeved shirt, although with nightsilk undergarments, Wendra stood in the equipment room of the maintenance barn, careful not to inadvertently swing the carrypack that held Alendra into any of the heavy machinery. She lifted the handle of the antique crusher out of the housing, setting it and the attached iron piston carefully on the oak workbench that seemed equally ancient. Tilting the crusher’s housing slowly, she poured out the fine granular powder that she had just ground. She measured out a half cup of the powdered crushed quartz and used a funnel to ease the powder into the bottle she had brought from the main house.
She’d have to go back to the kitchen and the cooler to add the goat’s milk and heat the makeshift formula before she fed the orphaned night-lamb that was bleating mournfully in the crib pen beside the main barn. Even with the goats supplied by Kustyl, feeding and caring for the lamb had been hard, but none of them wanted to see the lamb die—early un-seasonal birth or not—and especially not after losing four nightsheep over the fall and winter. That the lamb was the second that needed hand-raising in less than two seasons didn’t help, either. After she fed the lamb, she needed to check the spindles in the processing tank to see if they were ready for spinning.
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