Alector's Choice (39 page)

“The Myrmidons have
left,” Mykel said. “Didn’t you know?”

Strangely, Rachyla
laughed, softly and musically. It was anything but a happy sound. “You, too,
have been betrayed.”

Mykel understood
exactly what she meant. Was the whole campaign really just meant to destroy
Third Battalion? Were the Cadmians being scattered across Coras so that they
could be destroyed piecemeal? Or was there any explanation? Would it be any
better?

“You see, Captain?”
She stood. “You need sleep. I have nothing more to say. Good night.”

They faced each other
for several moments.

Finally, Mykel said,
“Good night, Lady Rachyla.”

He rapped on the door
and left without saying a word to the guards. Whether he was right or not,
there was no way that the seltyrs could have gotten so many Cadmian weapons
without some alectors supporting them. While the seltyrs saw more clearly than
other landers that the world ran on force, their mistake had been that they’d
thought that the alectors would respect force, rather than crash it. The rest
of Corus accepted what was—mostly, anyway—and that was that there was no
practical way to use force against the alectors and their Myrmidons—or even
against the Cadmians. Because of its comparative isolation, or for some other
reason, the seltyrs and those who controlled Dramur hadn’t learned that lesson.
Mykel wasn’t particu-larly happy being the one to administer it. What was
happening in Dramur should have been obvious to him much earlier, but it just
wasn’t the sort of thing that a Cadmian captain would expect. What else was
likely to happen that he didn’t expect?

Mykel walked back
toward the stables. He needed to find his gear. He needed to check his own
weapon. He needed to get washed up and get rid of the blood. And he needed
sleep.

What then is the role
of belief for an alector in these times and those to come?

Understanding the
hold that belief lays upon the undis-cerning is the first step. There are
beings who discern and those who do not. Those who discern are, in the normal
course of events, of the alectors, although we must admit that not all alectors
are as discerning as they should be, and some discern not at all. Likewise, not
all people of the lands are undiscerning, and, as will be discussed later,
those of the lands who are discerning are most dangerous and must be handled
with the greatest of care.

Whether alectors or
peoples of the lands, those who do not discern are but the highest of the
animals. Because they are like unto the cattle of the fields and the sheep in
the meadows, a discerning alector’s role is to care for them. They must be fed,
and they must be kept happy and healthy. They must also come to understand that
not all their desires can be satisfied, and therein lies the role of justice
and discipline, for, as in the case of animals, one cannot appeal to the reason
of an undiscerning individual, for one such has no true ability to reason.
Rather, such an individual wants and feels, then uses a crude form of logic to
rationalize those desires. The most dangerous are those who are skilled with
the tools of logic and reason and yet have no true understanding of the
universe that surrounds them, for they will use such logic to make themselves
the center of their limited world, regardless of the cost to others—or to
themselves.

Most important,
because not all desires can be satisfied, an alector must also offer comfort to
the undiscerning. One of those comforts is that of faith, the comfort of the
irrational, the comfort of believing that a supreme being cares for each and
every being who prays to this deity. An alector may claim, “But I care for
those for whom I am responsible.” That should indeed be true, but the truth as
such does not offer comfort to the undiscerning, for an alector is not seen as
supreme being.

It matters not that
an alector ensures that murderers are caught and punished, or that food is
shared equitably so that none starve. It matters not that an alector provides
justice and a land where the industrious prosper. The undiscerning will not
praise the alector for such; they will claim that all the benefits provided by
the alectors are the “will of the deity.”

For these reasons, a
truly wise alector will always align himself with the perceptions of the
undiscerning. He will not claim credit for what he has done, but will remain
modest, and assert that he was but carrying out the will of the deity, “the One
Who Is,” or “the Almighty,” or whatever divine appellation the undiscerning of
that time and place have adopted. By so positioning himself he will reduce unrest
among those over whom he is placed to care, and thus minimize the use of force
and applied justice.

Views of the Highest

Illustra

W.T. 1513

Novdi morning dawned
as gray as Octdi evening had been, but with a sheen of rain across the stones
of the compound’s courtyard. The rain had stopped falling even before Mykel
ate, but the clouds remained. A cold raw wind blew out of the northeast as he
walked from the officers’ mess toward headquarters. He managed a quiet burp and
hoped his guts would settle. Fried fish, day after day, was wearing, and then
some; but he understood why, when the nightwasps had made large herds of cattle
impossible and when no one raised many hogs, although Mykel didn’t know quite
why. There wasn’t much fruit either, except for the apple bananas.

Dohark was in the
same position as when Mykel had left the night before, looking down at a map on
the desk. Mykel saw that the overcaptain had even deeper circles under his
eyes.

“Close the door.”

Mykel did. “What
happened? Seventeenth Company?”

The overcaptain
nodded. “The survivors came in late last night. All eight of them.”

Mykel winced. He’d
feared that, but fearing and having those fears confirmed were two different
mounts.

“Somehow, Heransyr
let his company get strung out on a lane running through a valley. According to
the scout, it looked peaceful. Men tilling fields, repairing stone fences. Then
a squad of those bluecoats rode in on the other side of the valley, and began
shooting. People were falling like rain—”

“It was a trap,”
Mykel said. “They were pretending to fall.”

Dohark frowned. “You
know that now. How would you have known it then?”

“In all the time
we’ve been here, I’ve never seen more than three men working together in one
place. With that many men out in the fields, there should have been some
women.”

“Maybe you ought to
be the overcaptain.”

Mykel wasn’t quite
sure what to say. “It’s easy to say that afterward, but I’m sure you would have
seen the same thing if you had been there. It wouldn’t have felt right. You
might not have been able to say why it was wrong, but you would have known.”

A brief smile flitted
across Dohark’s face. “You can go by feel as a captain. It’s harder when you
can’t see what’s happening.” He looked at Mykel. “How many companies do you
think the western seltyrs have?”

“I’d say that they
had thirteen to start, and that the eastern seltyrs might have eleven.”

“Where did you come
up with those numbers?”

Mykel shrugged. “It’s
a guess. The captives we took yesterday morning said that every seltyr in the west
had raised a company, except for one, and he had raised two. Seltyr Ubarjyr’s
daughter—she’s a captive here—told me last night that there were twelve seltyrs
in the east and twelve in the west. We wiped out Ubarjyr’s company. So…
twenty-three or twenty-four.”

“You talked to her
last night?”

“After we talked.
I’ve been trying to find out things from her all along. Every so often she says
something, and it goes with something else.”

“That’s one thing I
like about you. Behind that agreeable face, you’re like a dog looking for a
bone. You just keep sniffing around, and you don’t give up. What else have you
learned?”

“Not much. She was
the one that hinted that we might have trouble with the western seltyrs. She
also intimated that there are companies here in the east.”

“We haven’t found
any.”

“Would we, sir, after
the raid on Stylan Estate?”

“It’d be unlikely,
that’s certain,” admitted Dohark.

Silence stretched out
in the study.

“I have a question,
sir,” Mykel finally said.

“Do I want to hear
it?” countered Dohark, with a flat laugh.

“Don’t you find it a
little disturbing that all of the rebel companies raised by the seltyrs have
unmarked Cadmian weapons and that the moment that the Myrmidon colonel leaves
with his pteridons we get attacked?”

“I’d thought about
that.” Dohark gestured around the study. “One reason why I took this over. I
don’t think he’ll be back soon.” He paused. “With or without pteridons, we
still have a mission. What do you suggest?”

“Find out as much as
we can about where their companies are. Pick them off, one at a time. They’re
no match for us if we choose where and how we fight.”

“How many good scouts
do you have?”

“Four.”

Dohark nodded. “We’ll
need them. If we’re going to choose where to fight and pick off these
bluecoats, we’ll need to know where they are and where they can go.” After a
moment, he looked squarely at Mykel. “Do you want to add the two squads—one
full squad, really—from Thirteenth Company to Fifteenth Company?”

“I’d like the extra
men, but it would cause more trouble. I’m sure they feel I set them up in
Jyoha, and, in a way, I did. I didn’t think Vaclyn would be that stupid.”

“Most of Heransyr’s
survivors are all right. You take them, then.”

“Thank you. We could
use them.” -

“Go get your scouts
and come back in a glass. We’ll assign areas to all the scouts then.”

“Yes, sir.” Mykel
stepped back and headed for the study loor.

“She is pretty,
Mykel,” Dohark said conversationally, ‘and useful. But I wouldn’t put her in a
position where you lave to trust her.“

“Sir?”

“You know exactly who
I mean.” Dohark’s voice carried a race of good humor. “The seltyr’s daughter.
Just be careful.”

“I intend to be very
careful, sir.”

“Good. Go round up
your scouts.”

Mykel slipped out of
the study and down the corridor to the entrance foyer. He wished he could be as
dispassionate as Dohark about the possible betrayal of the Cadmians by sither
the Myrmidons or other alectors. The overcaptain accepted that possibility and
went on. Mykel was still trying to figure out why. And then there was Rachyla—an
enigma—much like the ancient dagger in his belt, both beautiful, both able to
cut deep, and perhaps… both deadly. i

He stepped out into
the courtyard, where a light rain had begun to fall once more. If the rain
continued, it might keep the bluecoats from trying to fire more cots or from
attacking the Cadmians in the next day or so. Fifteenth Company could use the
rest, and so could the others.

After two long days
of flying, late on Novdi, just before the sun set behind the western horizon of
the seemingly endless grasslands of Illegea, Quelyt called back over his
shoulder, “There it is, sir!”

Dainyl looked
eastward toward the Spine of Coras and what lay at the base of the red cliffs
footing those snow-capped winter giants. The late afternoon light fell across
the redstone spires of the Vault of the Ages, turning them a deeper and duskier
shade, outlining them against the lighter stone and scattered trees of the
peaks to the east. Directly below the columned entrance to the Vault were the
wide stone steps that descended westward to the polished redstone plaza, empty
so late in the day. In the still air just before twilight, a haze blanketed the
lower areas of the hills to the east and north of the Vault.

“We’ll set down on
the plaza, sir,” added Quelyt.

“Go ahead!” Dainyl
had flown into the plaza himself, more than a few times, but he’d seen little
of Lyterna, outside of the barracks tunneled into the cliffs to the south of
the Vault, where he had waited as a ranker to carry dispatches to regional
centers and other places without Tables. There was little visible from the air,
or the ground—except for the great steps and the plaza—because the entire
complex had been carved into the rock ages before.

Quelyt made a long
and shallow approach across grasslands that remained tan and brown, without any
traces of green, although all the winter snows had melted. Then, the long blue
wings spread, and the pteridon flared and touched down gently on the plaza.

Once the pteridons
had landed, and the three Myrmidons had dismounted, Dainyl took the saddlebags
that held his gear and turned to Quelyt. “I doubt I’ll see you for a while. You
have tomorrow off, and you’ll head back in the morning on Londi.”

“You don’t want us to
wait, sir?”

“No. I’ll be here for
a while. There’s no reason for you to wait.” That was true. Dainyl would be in
Lyterna for a time, and, if he were successful in learning to use the Tables,
he wouldn’t need a pteridon to return. If he weren’t successful, he wouldn’t
need one, either.

“You certain, sir?”

“Very certain. Thank
you.” Dainyl shouldered the saddle-bags and turned, crossing the fifty yards of
the plaza between him and the great steps. As he climbed the steps toward the
Vault, the wind picked up, whistling around him. Although Lyterna was south of
Elcien, it was also higher and colder—much colder.

The Ifrit who greeted
him at the top of the great steps had silver hair, yet his life-aura was
clearly that of an alector, with the purple essence that was of Ifryn and
always would be. “I’m Asulet, Submarshal Dainyl. High Alector Zelyert sent word
to expect you.” An impish smile crossed the broad face. “I tutored your mother.
Briefly. You don’t look at all like her.”

As Dainyl smiled
wryly, the older alector laughed. “She had definite opinions.”

“She still does.”

“I imagine you’re
hungry and a bit chilled.”

“Somewhat,” Dainyl
admitted dryly.

Asulet turned and
stepped through the wide-open space that matched the width of the great stairs
and walked past | the first columns, toward a blank stone wall that parted as
he neared. The stone panels were a good nine yards high and seven wide, but
they moved quickly and silently, retracting flush into the walls, so well
fitted that Dainyl doubted a knife blade would fit between the stones. When
open, no one could have guessed there were stone doors. Dainyl noted the
deftness with which the elder alector had used his Talent to activate the
portals.

Within moments after
the two passed through the entrance, the stone doors closed behind them. Dainyl
could feel the immediate and welcome warmth and dampness to the air within the
chamber, more like summer in Lysia or Tylora.

Asulet stopped and
gestured around the columned hall in which they stood. “For reasons I never
quite grasped, the ‘ first lifemasters here decided to call this the Council
Hall.” He laughed once more, again with an ease that Dainyl en-vied. “We never
have had a council, nor any need for such, but then, maybe they knew what they
were doing. It’s the smallest of the three great halls. The other two originally
were used to house the first pteridons until we tunneled the barracks and
squares to the south.”

Dainyl glanced around
the space, modestly lit with light-torches set in wall brackets exactly three
yards above the polished red eternastone floor. The hall was not exactly small,
not at fifty yards in length and fifteen in width, with ceilings easily ten
yards high. Like the floor, the walls and ceilings were of polished red
eternastone. The redstone so treated did not reflect light, for all its apparent
shine and shimmer.

“Your quarters will
be in the upper quadrant,” Asulet went on as he resumed walking toward the
square archway set in the middle of the back wall. “They’re quite spacious,
with a private bath and accommodations. No windows, of course, but when they
were built, there wasn’t anything to see, and the winter cold might well have
shattered any glass.”

The floors, the
light-torches, the walls—everything looked so crisp, so recently formed that it
was hard for Dainyl to realize just how ancient Lyterna was.

“We will have dinner
in a glass. That should give you some time to refresh yourself.” Just past the
archway, Asulet touched a light-torch bracket on the right wall. Another stone
door opened, revealing steps leading upward. “The upper level is far more
comfortable.”

Dainyl followed the
silver-haired alector up the staircase cut from the solid stone, a distance
more than twice the height of a staircase in most structures. There was no
portal at the top, and they stepped out into a circular foyer nine yards
across. Three wide hallways radiated from the foyer. All were four yards wide
and brightly lit with light-torches set at three-yard alternating intervals
along the stone walls.

“The center corridor
leads to the dining and common rooms, and the library,” Asulet explained.
“Quarters for distinguished guests, such as you, are set along the far left
corridor. Somewhat larger apartments for those of us who toil here are set
along the right-hand corridor.” He turned down the left corridor. “Most of these
are seldom used. We get very few guests for long these days, and it’s always
good to see a new face.”

“Once an alector
gets… a great deal of experience… is this where?”

Asulet laughed again.
“Very few alectors age enough for it to show, but Lyterna is always available
for those with, as you put it, experience who wish a quieter life. There is
much we do not know about life here on Acorus, and there have never been enough
minds and hands to properly study and catalog what is here, much less to mold
additional useful life-forms.”

The older alector
stopped at second door and turned the flat bronze lever, letting the door swing
open. He gestured for Dainyl to enter.

Dainyl took two steps
inside and surveyed the sitting room. On the right wall was a large mural-like
painting, showing the grasslands to the west in spring green, with wildflowers
blossoming, and a herd of antelope. Beneath the lifelike depiction was a
settee, with the long legs and high back designed for alectors. On the wall
directly before him was a wide and high white oak desk, with rounded edges, but
clean and unornamented lines. The desk chair reminded Dainyl of the chairs in
the chambers of the High Alector of Justice, without cushions or upholstery,
but gently curved. On the wall above the desk was an oval painting of the High
Court of Illustra, with the twin green towers that framed the palace of the
Archon. On each side of each of the two paintings was a light-torch in a bronze
holder.

The walls were of the
redstone, but pale green hangings, like full-length drapes, ran from ceiling to
floor on each side of the desk and on each side of the painting on the wall to
Dainyl’s right. The floor was almost entirely covered by a large oval carpet of
dark green, bordered in gold, and with a gold eight-pointed star of the
Duarches in the center.

Asulet gestured
toward the ceiling, pointing to the corners of the room. “The ventilation
louvers have levers so that you can adjust them. The lever with the blue handle
is for cold air, and the one with the red handle is for warm moist air. You
can’t close them completely because there has to be some circulation, but you
ought to be able to find a mix that’s comfortable.”

Dainyl glanced around
the room before catching sight of the two narrow but wide air return ducts set
just above the floor beyond the edges of the hangings on the wall he faced.
“How do you get the warm moist air?”

“That was one reason
why Lyterna was located here. There are boiling springs. We tapped them, for
both hot water and heat. Be careful with the hot water for a bath or shower. It
is very hot.” With a smile, Asulet stepped back into the corridor. “I’ll meet
you in the foyer in a glass.”

After the older
alector had headed back in the direction of the foyer, Dainyl closed the door.
On the inside of the heavy oak door was a simple privacy bolt, no more. He
turned and walked through the sitting room to the bedchamber, dominated by a
triple-width bed with a plain white oak headboard and footboard. The coverlet
was dark green. A white oak armoire two yards wide stood against one wall, far
more space than Dainyl would ever use. With a smile, he set the saddlebags
holding his gear on the rack beside the armoire.

On the polished white
oak stand beside the bed was a mechanical glass, the circular face with its
single hand. There were five marks between each of the ten triangles. Dainyl
nodded. Without any sight of the sun, mechanical glasses were even more
necessary, and far better than sand ones, which had to be turned every glass or
measured against a gauge. Light-torches were set in wall brackets on each side
of the headboard.

He moved through the
open archway to the bath chamber, which held both shower and a deep redstone
tub, coated with a clear enamel or glaze. Beyond to the right was a much smaller
chamber with the other necessary facilities. Dainyl looked at the stone-walled
shower and the white bronze fixtures. A truly hot shower would be more than
welcome.

Almost a glass later,
feeling warmer, refreshed, and definitely hungry, Dainyl stepped out of the
guest chambers, wearing a clean uniform, and walked down the corridor toward
the foyer.

Ahead of him was an
older alector wearing a dark gray shirt and trousers—white-haired, and slightly
bent. He was carrying folded linens. As he saw Dainyl, he stepped to one side
and bowed. “Terribly sorry, sir.”

“That’s all right,”
Dainyl replied, uncertain of how or why the old alector was supposed to have
offended him.

The man bowed quickly
once more, then hurried past Dainyl.

Dainyl reached the
circular foyer, but saw no one there. He debated heading down the center
corridor, but decided to wait. Each of the four curved sections of stone wall
between the three corridors and the staircase held a mural. The geographic
locale of each mural was that of the isle and city of Elcien. The first scene
was just that of an isle, rocky in the center, low and marshy near the bay on
the south, with scattered stunted trees. The second showed the arching bridge
from the mainland and a grid of stone streets, with the Hall of Justice, and
Palace of the Duarch, and but a handful of other structures. The third depicted
an Elcien similar to the one Dainyl knew, if somehow subtly different. The
fourth illustrated an Elcien where a soaring palace— identical to the
depictions of the Archon’s Palace in Dlustra—rose between two green towers far
taller than those that currently flanked the Duarch’s palace.

“You are most
punctual,” observed Asulet, entering the foyer.

“I try.” Dainyl
pointed to the third mural. “When was that drawn?”

“Oh… some five
hundred years ago. They were all done then.”

“That one, it’s
almost like Elcien today.”

“It was the plan for
Elcien about a hundred years ago. It’s fairly close to what it is today.
Matters often take longer than originally planned.” Asulet’s last words held an
ironic dryness.

“The fourth
one—that’s what’s planned?”

“If the master
scepter is transferred here,” Asulet said. “The Archon has yet to decide. Let
us go eat. We will talk of that, and of other matters of which you should
know.” He turned.

Dainyl walked beside
the older alector down the wide center corridor.

“I saw someone in
gray…” Dainyl ventured, wondering if the rumors about old alectors were indeed
true.

“Yes. The orderlies
and servants. Various failures, heavily imprinted with loyalty bonds. Tragic,
but it’s better than execution, and someone has to do the menial work, and it’s
far better than letting landers or indigens know what lies behind the facade of
the Vault.”

What did lie behind
the facade of Lyterna? The Highest had intimated that much did, and now Asulet
was telling him the same thing. The engineering alone, Dainyl had to admit, for
what little he had seen in the past glass and a half, had to have been
stupendous.

“You are beginning to
wonder, are you not, Submarshal?”

“How could I not?”
Dainyl managed a laugh. “I’ve already seen superb engineering and remarkable
crafting, and I doubt that I’ve seen a fraction of what is here.”

“That is indeed so.”
Asulet raised a hand toward the open square archway just ahead of them. “The
dining chamber is the most ornate space in Lyterna, and it is also among the
oldest finished rooms in the complex. The thought was that we should have
something of elegance and grace when outside held little but lichens, stunted
trees, and winter-cold swamps.” As Asulet finished speaking, he stepped through
the wide square arch into a large circular chamber.