Darknesses

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  There were no mirrors in the chamber, and the nurses had only removed the bandages from his face the day before. Someone had undressed him long since, and his nightsilk undergarments had been washed and pressed, then hung in the large armoire. He wore a nightshirt of soft cotton.

  From what he could see, his arms and chest were covered with healing bruises of mottled and faded purple and yellow, and even the slightest movements still hurt slightly. The skin on the back of his hands was peeling away, and there was a layer of pinker skin beneath. His hair had either been cut or burned away, because all he could feel was stubble on the top of his head, as well as on his face.

  Feran was the first visitor he was allowed.

  “You look much better.” Feran grinned.

  “I don’t think…want to know what I looked like.” Alucius’s throat was dry, no matter how much of the ale on the table beside the bed he drank. Speaking remained hard. “What happened…the nomads?”

  “You saw…you saw what happened with the last pteridon…well…that was Aellyan Edyss, so far as we could figure. That explosion killed most of his warleaders. Couldn’t tell how many nomads, but at least half of them. The Deforyans turned and attacked, and the nomads pulled back and rode south to Illegea.”

  “Just…like that?”

  “Submarshal Ahorak—he didn’t want to talk to me, but he couldn’t talk to you—he said that it had to do with how the nomads rule. The warleaders have to chose their ruler, and so many of the warleaders died…. Something like that. We’re not complaining.”

  “What about…Twenty-first Company?” Alucius feared the worst.

  “Squads on the wings got hit the hardest, first and fifth squads.”

  “How hard?” Alucius tried to sit up, more, but the blackness and the dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.

  “You’ve got sixty troopers left. Egyl’s holding them together pretty well.”

  “Egyl? Longyl…?”

  “The nomads got him just before the fires got them. I didn’t see what happened. No one did,” Feran said. “Everything around Twenty-first Company got blasted…turned to cinders. Think that as much as anything decided the nomads to go back to Illegea.”

  Alucius managed the smallest of nods. “Fifth Company?”

  “We were far enough from you that only a couple of troopers got burned, but we lost a bunch before that. I’ve got forty-five left.”

  “What…the others?”

  “The majer and pretty much all of Twenty-third Company were wiped out. Two troopers left. I put them in Fifth Company. Half of Third Company, but Heald didn’t make it, and less than a third of Eleventh Company. Koryt scraped through. Left arm’s broken, and a bad slash on his thigh. Looks like he’ll make it. Until he’s better, Heald’s senior squad leader’s running both Third and Eleventh.” Feran shook his head. “No one thought you’d make it. Uniform was burned off you. Women tending you said that you didn’t have a span of skin that wasn’t either black and bruised or burned—mostly bruised.”

  “Herders…are tough…”

  “The nightsilk helped, but I still think anyone else would have died.”

  Alucius had to lean back on the pillows. “Wildebeast…?”

  “That stallion’s tough, too. Had bruises and cuts, but he’s in better shape than you are.” Feran smiled. “He’ll be ready to ride home before you will be.”

  Alucius nodded.

  “I told Ahorak that you’d trained your troopers to shoot at flying targets. Told Egyl too. That’s the way it is.”

  “Thank you…” Alucius whispered.

  “Once you’re better, Landarch wants to give some sort of award, then send us packing. Think he figures that few as we are, we shouldn’t stay too long.” Feran straightened. “I’d better go. You still have some healing to do.”

  “Thanks…” Alucius knew he was repeating himself, but couldn’t find anything else to say.

  “No. We owe you the thanks. Every trooper who left that field would have died without you, and we all know it. All of us are going to make sure that no one else knows it. That’s the way it’ll be.” Feran smiled. “Just get better. We want you riding up front again.”

  After Feran left, Alucius looked blankly at the open windows.

  73

  Alucius stood in a great hall, the like of which he had never seen before. Above him, the vaulted ceiling soared at least fifty yards, a ceiling seemingly of pink marble, fitted together so cunningly that there was not a sign of a join, or of mortar. The walls were of the same marble. Golden columns flanked the entryway and were also set into the walls at regular intervals. Deep purple hangings, trimmed in gold and flowing down from golden brackets anchored in the columns, framed the marble walls.

  After studying the chamber, Alucius glanced down. The floor was of polished gold and green marble, each octagonal section of green marble inset with an eight-pointed star of golden marble, the narrow arms of the star outlined in a narrow line of golden metal that was neither gold nor brass. Alucius looked up to see a man appear from nowhere.

  The tall figure had flawless alabaster skin, shimmering black hair, and deep violet eyes. He stood in the center of one of the golden stars, wearing a tunic of brilliant green, trimmed in a deep purple, with matching trousers, and black boots so highly polished that they appeared metallic. Less than two yards from Alucius, his violet eyes centered on Alucius, and he began to speak.

  The words were deep and resonant, and Alucius understood not a one, although he felt that he should have.

  After a moment, the man frowned, then spoke again. “You should have understood the ancient tongue. It may be that, being who you are, you cannot acknowledge that you do.”

  “Acknowledge?” Alucius felt like a child, where everyone else was talking about matters he was expected to know…and didn’t. “I’m just a herder and an overcaptain.”

  The alabaster-skinned man laughed. “Already, you have destroyed two far greater than you say you are, and you are just a herder? The Lord-Protector knows you better than you know yourself. Why else would he pick an unknown captain and send him against the largest mass of nomads in generations? And how else could you triumph were you not greater than you say you are?”

  “Luck, and skill, and being able to take advantage of their weaknesses,” Alucius replied firmly.

  “It takes more than luck and skill to be a child of the Duarchy…or to best one. You cannot long hide what you are, not in a world of petty and jealous men. Yet…if you continue to act as you are, you will not be the hero who restores the dual scepter and the prosperity of the Duarchy, but the ill-fated lamaial. And if you would be lamaial, you will suffer because you stand against the dual scepter. Few will know the suffering that you will.”

  Then, Alucius found himself in a darkened chamber, one where the ancient eternastone walls began to move, closing in…tighter…and tighter…

  He sat up in the large bed, shivering, his nightshirt damp with sweat. After a moment, he blotted his steaming face, but gently, because his skin was still tender. He sat in the darkness for a time, wondering why he had dreamed once more of the violet-eyed man.

  Finally, Alucius eased sideways on the damp sheets until he was again between cotton sheets that were dry and cool. After a time, he dozed off again.

  Before long, he found himself in his Northern Guard uniform, riding Wildebeast, digging his heels into the stallion’s flanks, urging his mount forward.

  Ahead was a pteridon, its rider spraying blue light and flame from the metallic blue skylance across Twenty-third Company. The pteridon and the wall of blue flames were sweeping toward Third Company.

  Alucius raised his rifle and tried to aim and fire as he rode, knowing he did not have time to stop and fire, that he had to reach the pteridon quickly. But the flames swept inexorably over the troopers, and the blue-winged pteridon wheeled toward Alucius, so close that Alucius could see the white face and the dark hair of the rider as he aimed his skylance at Alucius and
Wildebeast.

  Flashes of blue light flared past Alucius, and he could feel his own hair crisping…smell it. Behind him, mounts screamed as they were enveloped in flame.

  He sat up, soaked in sweat, despite the cooler night breeze coming through the half-open windows.

  He recalled the words of the man with the alabaster complexion in the dream. “If you would be lamaial, you will suffer because you stand against the dual scepter.”

  Lamaial? The legendary character out of the past? What did that have to do with him? He was a herder. Or an officer in the Northern Guard who just wanted to finish his obligation and go back to his stead.

  Alucius recalled as well the threat from the man in the dream—that he would suffer as few had. He certainly didn’t want to suffer, or to have his family suffer, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do to avoid such suffering. Was doing what he believed to be right standing against the dual scepter? He couldn’t believe that his dreams or thoughts were telling him that he was supposed to have let the Matrial strangle men and women through their lifewebs. Or that he was supposed to have let the pteridons and their riders burn thousands of troopers to death and overrun Dereka and whatever other lands and cities might follow.

  And…besides being the symbol of the ancient Duarchy, long since vanished, what was the dual scepter? The dream figure had suggested it was more, but Alucius, for all his travels and reading, had never run across any references to the dual scepter except as a symbol of the Duarchy, or as a reference to someone’s ambition to be a great ruler.

  And why was Alucius dreaming of such a figure, with the alabaster skin? Outside of a fleeting glance of the Matrial, a glance he had never been certain he had actually made, he had never seen someone with the violet eyes and alabaster skin. Nor had he ever read of such.

  Still…the dream figure had raised one interesting question. Why had the Lord-Protector picked out Alucius—or any of the others? What did the Lord-Protector know?

  Alucius sat up in the bed for almost a glass, pondering, before he dared to try to sleep once more. As he finally drifted off, he held his thoughts firmly on Wendra.

  74

  Tempre, Lanachrona

  The Lord-Protector and his consort sat on opposite sides of the table in the small private dining room. After taking a last morsel of the plumapple mousse and savoring it, he set down the ancient silver spoon.

  “Your thoughts are beyond the river, dear,” she said with a laugh. “As they often are these days.”

  “Ah, my dear Alerya, you know me too well.” His brown eyes focused on her, and he smiled warmly. “It is good that we are married. You would be a danger otherwise.”

  “Nonsense. I’d not know you in the slightest, and so would be none at all.” She sipped the amber dessert wine. “What concerns you now?”

  “Enyll…there is something about him,” mused the Lord-Protector.

  “There has always been something about him,” suggested his consort.

  “No…something different. Before…he was always present, even when I did not wish to see him, always pressing to tell me something he had discovered or thought he might. Now, I seldom see him, unless I visit the Table chamber.”

  “He is hiding something.”

  “Yes. But what?” asked Talryn. “I have had the best spies search his chambers, his papers. I have had him watched every moment of his day, waking and sleeping. All that he does is reported.” The Lord-Protector shook his head. “From all this, what do I discover? That he spends more and more time with the Table.”

  “Then,” she suggested, “whatever he is concealing is hidden within the Table.”

  “And how can I discover what that might be? I know of none who has the Talent to utilize the Table, save him. And even if I did, would they be any more trustworthy than he is?”

  “Perhaps the Table has revealed something he wishes not to disclose. Or, could it be that all the use of the Table has changed him?”

  “Either might well be, and where does that leave us? Would the same occur to anyone else, even if we could find another Recorder?”

  “Keep watching him, but treat him as though nothing at all has changed. If he has indeed changed, then there will be some action that will provide you a clue as to his thoughts and desires. It may be that, as he is aging—”

  “I wonder…”

  “You wonder what, dearest?” asked Alerya.

  “Nothing…”

  “With you, it is never nothing.”

  He laughed. “No. You are right, but it is a feeling, and I would not say more until I have seen and thought more upon it.”

  She frowned.

  “You disagree?”

  “No. I can understand how you feel, especially as Lord-Protector.” She paused. “I give great credence to feelings. If you do not wish to speak of such, because you cannot find the words to match what you feel, that is well and good. But…act upon the feelings, if need be, even if you cannot find the words that would reason why.”

  “Most would caution the opposite,” he said slowly.

  “Most are fools,” she replied. “More often than not, men reason themselves into difficulties more than they reason themselves out of.”

  “Need we talk more of reason?” he asked, standing from the table and glancing toward the door to their bedchamber.

  She shook her head, affectionately, then rose and took his hand.

  75

  Alucius looked in the mirror, checking his appearance and his remaining uniform. His dark gray hair was the same shade as always, but only a short thatch. His face was thinner and pinker than he recalled, and his beard, he had noted in shaving, tougher. There were faint white lines across his left cheek, but he had no idea how he had gotten them, unless they had occurred unnoticed in the battle or after he and Wildebeast had fallen.

  The uniform was a little looser, but not much.

  After a last check, he turned and walked from the chamber he had been allowed to keep, even after he had recovered—mostly—from his injuries.

  Outside, in the front courtyard, were two squads. One was the third squad of Twenty-first Company, and the other was a squad of Deforyan Lancers in full dress red uniforms. The Deforyan Lancers were formed up at the front, while the third squad troopers, led by Egyl as acting senior squad leader, were drawn up behind Wildebeast.

  Wildebeast tossed his head slightly as Alucius neared, then settled down as Alucius projected warmth.

  “He’s glad to see you, sir,” Egyl said. “We all are.”

  “I’m very glad to see all of you.” Left unspoken was the thought that Alucius would have liked to have seen more than the fourteen troopers remaining in third squad. Alucius mounted and settled himself in the saddle.

  The Deforyan undercaptain offered a low command, and the Deforyans began to ride toward the open gates.

  “Forward!” Egyl ordered, at a nod from Alucius.

  After they rode out through the open gates and turned northward, Alucius looked up the main street, but it appeared little different from any other time, with peddlers and beggars and groups of shoppers on each side, but none in the middle, except a boy who sprinted across and vanished behind a group of older women. Without even trying, from the overall feel, Alucius could sense that the youngster had stolen something.

  “Do you know why the Landarch wants to see you, sir?” asked Egyl.

  “I told you what I know,” Alucius said. “He wants to express his appreciation personally. According to Submarshal Ahorak, that is quite an honor.”

  “More than we got from the Council.”

  It was, Alucius reflected, but then, they hadn’t saved an entire land. In fact, he’d watched his homeland be taken over by Lanachrona because a group of greedy traders cared more for gold than an independent destiny, and neither he nor Colonel Clyon had been able to do a thing.

  The ride was short, less than half a vingt northward from Lancer Prime Post to the iron gates of the Landarch’s palace, gua
rded by a half squad of lancers in red. The guard lancers bowed their heads, if briefly, as Alucius rode past.

  “Never saw that before,” observed Egyl.

  “Neither have I,” Alucius replied, “but the only other time we were here was for a banquet.” He fell silent, thinking about the three officers who had been with him who had fallen. While he hadn’t known the majer well, nor cared that much for Clifyr, he definitely missed Heald, and wished he’d had a chance to know him better.

  “Sir…” whispered Egyl.

  Alucius looked up. The entire wall inside the front courtyard of the Landarch’s palace was shimmering blue—the blue of nomad breastplates.

  “More than a few bits of armor there,” Egyl said quietly.

  Alucius counted and calculated, trying to do the multiplication and estimation quickly. From what he could determine, there were close to three thousand breastplates on display—more breastplates than the entire Deforyan and western forces combined. “More than the number of lancers and troopers we had, I’d guess.”

  “Knew that from the beginning.” Egyl broke off his words as they neared the entryway.

  As they reined up under the covered entryway, Alucius saw Submarshal Ahorak waiting on the steps above the mounting blocks. With him was a white-haired man in the uniform of a full marshal.

  Alucius dismounted and handed Wildebeast’s reins to Egyl. “I don’t know how long.”

  “That’s fine, sir. We’ll be here.”

  Alucius climbed three wide steps and bowed. “Marshal, Submarshal.”

  “Overcaptain Alucius,” Ahorak said, “this is Marshal Seherak.”

  Alucius inclined his head. “I’m honored, Marshal.”

  “We are all honored by your actions and accomplishments, Overcaptain.”

  “Your lancers fought gallantly,” Alucius replied, thinking that the Deforyan Lancers had fought bravely, if not terribly intelligently.