Scepters

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “You won’t let me go?” Korcler stood in the doorway.

  “No. It might not be dangerous, but it could be. You’re not trained for this.”

  Korcler looked down.

  “I should be back later, I’d guess around sunset, but it might be longer. Just rest until I get back. If…if anything happens, and I don’t get back, you’re to ride back to Iron Stem tomorrow. No matter what. Do you understand?” Alucius projected total command. “Don’t talk to anyone about this except Majer Feran and my grandsire. No one except those two.”

  Korcler backed away a step. “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

  “Good. Now go back to eating. You haven’t had enough.”

  While Korcler finished eating, Alucius wrote a brief note to Feran, saying that he was going to investigate something he had heard about Tarolt and hoped he would not be that long. On his way back to the stable, he left it on Feran’s desk.

  Then he made his way to the stable, where he saddled the chestnut. In less than a quarter glass he was riding out the gates.

  “You’re going out alone, sir?” asked the sentry, a lancer from Fifth Company whose name and face he couldn’t put together.

  “Just for the afternoon.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he turned westward, Alucius considered whether he should have left a note for Royalt with Korcler. He decided that his decision not to was the right one. If…if Tarolt was an ifrit, there was little Royalt could or should do. If not, Alucius should be back before long.

  He wasn’t certain, but he couldn’t afford to wait to be certain. He worried that he’d already delayed too long. The more he’d thought, the more he felt that the ifrits had to have something to do with both the problems with the prophet and the Matrites and the torques—and with Wendra’s disappearance. The most disturbing thought was that somehow he had created the problem. The morning after he’d killed Halanat, Wendra had vanished. That coincidence seemed unlikely. Far too unlikely, and that meant he had to act quickly, especially since he hadn’t, but then, he reminded himself, he hadn’t known that Wendra had vanished. He’d fretted that something had been wrong, but hadn’t even guessed that.

  From Elyset’s directions, he could doubtless find Tarolt’s place—but then what could he do? He wasn’t certain, but the puzzlement that Halanat had expressed was a good indication that the ifrit-possessed trader had been surprised at Alucius’s appearance. That, in turn, suggested that he had not known about Wendra’s disappearance—or had not connected it to Alucius. But Halanat had clearly recognized Alucius. Then again, Alucius had no idea whether Tarolt was also ifrit-possessed, although it seemed likely, but from what Alucius had gathered, Tarolt was the real power behind the traders, and he might well not have told anyone if he had acted against Wendra, nor talked about anything else he might have done.

  There were so many unanswered questions. What if more than the one ifrit had been behind the attempted assassination after Alucius had first left the Northern Guard? What if Tarolt had also been involved? But what if he hadn’t? Then who else could have been, and how could Alucius discover who the others were? What if they were not responsible for Wendra’s disappearance?

  He shook his head. There had to be a link…somewhere…somehow.

  Perhaps he could learn more by following Tarolt, at least for a time, or by spying on his actions or his household.

  He continued to ride westward. After a quarter vingt or so, he turned the chestnut left onto another street, continuing southward. He rode less than half a vingt, past a mixture of older dwellings and shops, until the street ended at the river road.

  He followed it westward, along the southern edge of the low bluffs overlooking the River Vedra, and before long, on his right, the houses gave way to cots, and then the cots vanished. Beyond were overgrazed and snow-dotted meadows with sparse and scattered trees, lands that sloped downhill in rolling rills to the north. To his left were the rugged and rocky slopes that dropped to the river.

  Almost a vingt ahead he could see the point of land that Elyset had mentioned—a triangular bluff that jutted southward into the path of the river, so that the river curved around it before once more returning to its westward course. The road did not follow the edge of the bluff as before, but cut directly across the flat. A second road, more like a lane, veered to the left and toward the single walled dwelling set just north of the apex of the point. From the rear of the dwelling, Tarolt must have had a marvelous view of the river, which lay a good fifty yards below, and of the lower hills on the far side of the Vedra. Another half vingt beyond the walled complex were the blackened remains of another large dwelling.

  As Alucius rode closer to the point, he glanced around, searching for some position from where he could observe the bluff and the single dwelling, one where he could rest the chestnut and from which neither he nor his mount could be seen. More than a hundred yards ahead, Alucius could discern a line of scrub bushes and several low, winter-bare trees, possibly lining the sides of a wash or dry streambed. While it was farther from Tarolt’s than he would have preferred, there did not look to be anything closer that offered any cover.

  The vegetation that rose out of the scattered snow and winter-browned grass did indeed mark a dry streambed nearly ten yards wide in spots and three to four in depth. Unfortunately, Alucius had to follow it almost fifty yards north of where it ran under a narrow timber bridge to find enough cover for both him and the chestnut. After tethering his mount to a thick root in a flatter section of the wash, Alucius took a swallow from a water bottle—one of a pair—before slipping one of the heavy rifles from its saddle holder and easing his way back southward along the wash. He found a spot some twenty yards north of the main road, where he could peer through the sparse branches of a scrub oak and see both the road and Tarolt’s dwelling.

  As he studied the dwelling, the portion of it he could see above the stone wall, Alucius could sense a haziness to the air, a purplish fog unseen to the eye but all too clear to his Talent-senses. The intensity of the purpleness suggested to him that either Tarolt was ifrit-possessed or that there were others in the dwelling who were.

  After perhaps a quarter glass he shifted his weight, wondering if his vigil would prove fruitless. How long should he wait? Finally, he decided that, if no one left the dwelling, once darkness fell, he would move closer to see what else he might be able to discover.

  Just as he reaffirmed that decision mentally, he saw the gate in the wall surrounding the dwelling open. Four men rode out, and a pair of guards on foot closed the gates behind them.

  Alucius waited as the four riders came northeast along the lane, and then turned eastward on the river road back toward Dekhron. As they neared the bridge over the small wash, through the branches of the scrub oak, Alucius could see that only one wore black and was white-haired—presumably Tarolt, although the black was that of a heavy coat.

  Even from close to thirty yards away, at a single Talent-glance, Alucius could see that Tarolt was not a man possessed by an ifrit. He was an ifrit. He did not have two lifethreads, with the purpled one dominating one anchored in Corus. Tarolt’s single lifethread was an ugly dark purple, stretching somewhere to the southeast. Did it run to a Table?

  With Alucius’s concentration on Tarolt, it was a moment before he realized something else. Not only was Tarolt an ifrit, but so was the dark-haired man in a maroon riding jacket who rode beside him. Like Tarolt, he had a single purple lifethread running to the southeast.

  Alucius’s fingers tightened around the rifle, but he did not lift it, much as he was tempted. He needed to find Wendra far more than he needed to kill ifrits. And that was assuming that he could kill them.

  Once the four were well past him, Alucius eased his way back up the wash to where he had left the chestnut. He waited a time longer before he mounted and set out to follow the riders. He doubted he would have too much trouble, not when his Talent could pick up the purpleness from over a vingt away.

  T
he men whom Alucius followed remained on the river road all the way into Dekhron. As they entered the outskirts of the trading town, Alucius eased the chestnut closer, although he fretted that the four might realize that someone was following them. Tarolt and his party stayed on the river road, riding past the warehouses and wharves on the river, not turning until they reached the causeway that crossed the Vedra and led into Salaan.

  Once across the ancient eternastone bridge, the four continued past the lane just on the south side of the bridge, the lane that led to the Southern Guard fort.

  When Alucius passed the lane, a good half vingt behind Tarolt, he looked to his left at the dilapidated and abandoned fort. As he continued through Salaan, he glanced at the narrow-windowed houses. It seemed to him that every time he passed through, they looked even poorer than the time before, and certainly more run-down than the first time he had been there more than two years earlier, on his way home from Tempre and his previous encounter with the ifrit-possessed Recorder of Deeds.

  Slightly farther southward, Tarolt turned west on a road almost as wide as the eternastone highway but constructed of winter-hardened clay that led, as Alucius recalled, to the bluff on the south side of the river that held the few traders’ dwellings in Salaan.

  After more than a vingt, the riders turned left, down a lane that split a stand of apricot trees, toward a low ridge south of the sprawling orchard. Alucius hung back even farther before following.

  When he finally reached the southernmost part of the orchard, he reined up the chestnut beside one of the last apricot trees and looked ahead. Less than a hundred yards away, at the end of the lane, he could make out a squat stone building set on the lowest point of the saddle between two modest ridges. Snow had drifted against the north side of the building in places, and the limestone blocks took on a greater purplish hue with each moment that Alucius studied them. To the northwest were a stable and an outbuilding, both of timber and plank.

  As he watched, with eyes and Talent, another figure stepped from the stone building to greet the four riders. Tarolt made an abrupt gesture, and the group split, the two ifrits and the one who had greeted them going into the squat building, the guards waiting with the mounts. Alucius could sense that at least two of the lifethreads were anchored within the structure. That meant that the building most certainly held a Table. But the structure was relatively new. Were the ifrits constructing more Tables? Was there one in the north through which Wendra had been taken or captured?

  Since he had no answers, Alucius continued to watch.

  A single stable boy or ostler appeared, and the guards followed him with all the mounts, taking them into the long, shedlike stable. After a time, the three left the stable and entered the other outbuilding. Before long, the dusty open space before the stone building looked deserted, with neither grooms nor guards.

  Alucius shifted his weight in the saddle. There were at least five men there, and at least two were ifrits—and the ifrits were in a building that most likely housed a new Table.

  Now…what was he going to do?

  124

  Salaan, Lanachrona

  The three figures sat around a circular table in the anteroom off the Table chamber. Despite the chill radiating from the north-facing walls, the penetrating heat from the stove set against the outside wall made the room more than pleasantly warm. A decanter of wine on a silver tray was equidistant from the crystal goblets set before Tarolt and the Recorder, and a tray of cheeses and fruit rested in the precise center of the table. Sensat sat beside Tarolt, also with a goblet before him.

  “The herder-colonel is somewhere nearby. I can sense him,” Tarolt said mildly, pausing to take another small swallow of the red wine. “He was watching the house on the point, and then he followed us.”

  “You let him?” asked Sensat. “He could have shot at us. He could have injured someone, or killed one of the guards.”

  “Let him? I tried to project enough vulnerability that he would follow us. Besides, had he decided to attack, he would have waited until nightfall and slipped into the compound. He wanted to know where we were going. And why, I would judge. Curiosity is a fatal flaw with most Talent-steers.”

  “He may be more than that,” suggested the Recorder.

  “That is hardly likely, my dear Trezun,” replied Tarolt.

  “Are you sure it is the colonel? Could it not be an ancient one? Their threads are also green.” The Recorder set his goblet on the polished wood.

  “The ancient ones seldom come this far south. But…does it matter? We must deal with both, and we have the means to do so…now.”

  Both Sensat and Tarolt smiled; the Recorder did not.

  “Have you determined whether any of the inactive Tables can be reactivated?” asked Tarolt several moments later.

  “The one in Blackstear is in perfect condition. It will take but one translation from here or another Table.”

  “That one has little use except to strengthen the node grid. What else?” inquired Tarolt.

  “The Table in Soupat will require someone to travel there physically, but its repair will be relatively quick.”

  “Could we not try a translation to it?” asked Sensat.

  Trezun shrugged. “We could, but that is risky to whoever is being translated. Would you like to try a translation there?”

  “Ah…we could arrange for a trading trip there,” mused Sensat. “Sometime.”

  “I hesitate to send an Efran when we’re still so hard-pressed.” Trezun frowned, his fingers stroking the crystal stem of the goblet before him. “Especially with Waleryn being alone in Norda without a fully working Table.”

  “I thought he had the Table in Norda working,” Tarolt said.

  “He can communicate, but not translate,” Trezun explained. “The cold affected some of the crystals. It will be a few more days, he says.”

  “You see?” asked Tarolt. “He is working with all the resources of Lustrea behind him, and it may be almost a year to reactivate one Table and reconstruct another. That is why I asked about the inactive Tables. How else can we build a fully functioning node grid quickly? Even if it takes half a season, that will be far less time than building a Table from nothing at another nodal matrix. And that does not count travel time.” Tarolt glanced toward the window on the north side of the room.

  “But the Soupat Table, like the one in Blackstear, is useful only in supporting the strength of the entire grid,” observed Trezun.

  “We will need all the strength that we can build,” replied Tarolt. “Remember…there are twenty-three thousand Efrans who expect to make the long translation…”

  “The population here is not large enough to support that many,” murmured Sensat. “Not without tapping the world itself.”

  “The fieldmasters know already that the support limit is between five and seven thousand,” replied Tarolt. “So you can count yourself lucky that you are already here.”

  Trezun nodded politely. “Whatever the number, we will be ready.”

  “Why is it that those Tables that are the easiest to reestablish are the most remote?” Sensat snorted, going on before the other two could reply, “I know. That is precisely why. They are so remote that no one suspected they were there, or that they retained power.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Trezun with a laugh.

  “Now that the Table in Prosp is operating, if Waleryn can reconstruct a Table in Norda, and we can send someone to repower the one in Soupat, we could rebuild the Table in Dereka, could we not?” Sensat looked to Trezun. “The location still retains enough energy and identification to be a portal, even if it is not so powerful as the one at Hieron.”

  “The portal in Hieron is an anomaly. Only a fully translated Efran can use it, as you know, and most infrequently. We cannot spend the effort and energy on portals, not when we need Tables.”

  “We need to make deliberate haste, then,” added Sensat.

  “Deliberate haste? That has been the watchword for year
s.”

  “We have less time than we thought,” Tarolt replied. “Fieldmaster Lasylt has calculated that the translation tubes will endure no more than another five years at most. That is when the nebular field webs will reach the underspace clear-lines linking Efra to Acorus.”

  “Another curse upon the ancient ones,” muttered Trezun.

  “We were fortunate that they were not stronger,” Tarolt said. “At least their barriers have been weakened enough that we can resume our work. Would that our brethren on Efra truly understood the urgency.”

  “They fear leaving the warmth and comfort of Efra, and they do not wish to be the ones to deal with the cold and the crudeness of Acorus,” Trezun observed.

  “Let someone else make the sacrifices,” Tarolt snorted. “That’s how they feel. We have, and we will reap the benefits.”

  “What about the tubes to Ejernyt?” asked Sensat.

  “Twenty years at best,” interjected Trezun. “Ejernyt will not be ready for colonization for at least a hundred years, but we can continue that effort from here on Acorus.”

  “That means finding and removing the ancient ones,” Sensat said.

  “And their tools—like the colonel outside,” suggested Tarolt, smiling coolly.

  “What do you suggest?” inquired Trezun.

  “He has a curiosity about Tables. We should let him see a fully functioning one—one with a single translation tube directed to Soupat.” The white-haired ifrit trader laughed. “That will solve two problems.”

  The other two nodded. After a moment, a crooked smile crossed the lips of the Recorder.

  125

  Alucius had tied the chestnut to one of the trees farther back in the apricot orchard, taken his topmost rifle, and eased forward from tree to tree until he stood just behind one of the trees closest to the stone building and the surrounding outbuildings. While he studied the stone building for close to half a glass, he saw no one outside, and it did not appear that anyone would be leaving.