Alector's Choice (61 page)

Mykel stood at the
edge of the warm weather dining porch, in the light breeze that reminded him
that spring in Faitel was far cooler than winter in Dramur. For a time, he
looked at the still-fragile grape leaves, barely unfolded. The lower trunk and
the outer canes had yet to leaf out. He let his eyes take in the ancient vine,
not really seeing it, just feeling that it was alive, in a way that he had not
felt before, not exactly. He was so motionless that a redbird alighted on the
far end of the arbor, cocking its head in a perky fashion.

A faint halo of
something surrounded the redbird, golden brown. Mykel blinked, and the halo
vanished. Yet it had been there, and too real to have been his imagination.

“The grapes aren’t
out yet,” said Olent, crossing the porch toward his son. “It was a wet and cold
winter. That usually means they’re late leafing out, but, if the summer’s warm,
we’ll have a good crop come harvest.”

Mykel turned,
studying his father, trying to recapture what he had felt when he had looked at
the redbird. After a moment, he could sense a warm brownish gold around Olent.

“Supper’s almost
ready.” Olent paused. “You’ve been more quiet since you got back. Are you all
right?”

Mykel stopped to
consider his father’s words and lost the sense of the aura he had felt, but he
knew, now, that he could recall it. What exactly it meant or signified, other
than life itself, trmt he would have to discover. “I’m fine. I’ve just been
thinking.”

Was he fine? He’d
killed scores of rebels, and that didn’t include the poor and hapless debtors
of Jyoha. Many of the so-called battles had been little more than massacres,
and he’d succeeded by being more ruthless than the seltyrs. He’d been placed in
a situation where he’d had little choice if he wanted to survive—and if the men
under him were to have had any chance. And he still didn’t really understand
why, other than the seltyrs and the alectors both wanted power. Was that life?
The struggle for power? Did it have to be that way? Could he change things as a
majer? Or would he be pressed to create more destruction?

“You’ve been thinking
a lot.”

“I suppose that’s
true. Dramur changed things.” He offered a smile. “I’m probably hungry, too.
It’s been a long day.” He turned and walked back across the empty dining porch
and into the cramped inside dining room.

Following him, Olent
closed the door to the porch behind them. “Let’s eat before it all gets cold,”
he announced, taking the chair at the head of the table.

Mykel settled into
the place at his father’s right, across from his sister. As he sat down,
Sesalia offered a smile. Olent looked to the other end of the table at Aelya,
and his wife nodded back at him.

“I think that means
I’m saying the blessing,” commented Olent. “I don’t know why I even asked. With
everyone here, it’s always the same.” He cleared his throat. “In the name of
the One Who Was, Is, and Will Be, may our food be blessed, and our lives as
well, in the times of prosperity and peace, and those which are neither.
Blessed be the lives of both the deserving and the undeserving that both may
strive to do good in the world and beyond, and may we always re-call that we do
not judge our worthiness, but leave that judgment to the One Who Is.” After a
moment of silence, he looked up. “Everyone take whatever’s closest.”

Mykel lifted the
basket of hard dark bread to Sesalia first, who served herself, then Bortal,
before handing it back to Mykel. The main course was a mutton pie, heavy on
early carrots and onions, that Olent passed to Sesalia.

Aelya glanced at her
daughter, “I still miss the children, dear.”

Olent guffawed.
“Every time she doesn’t bring them, you remind her. You’ll make her feel guilty
for being able to eat a meal in peace.”

“I don’t see them
that often now,” replied Aelya.

“You see them more
often than Sesalia and Bortal get to see Mykel. Now that he’s a majer, we’ll
all probably see him even less.”

While the others
talked, Mykel took several bites of the mutton pie, enjoying it and the sweet
and heavy black bread, so much better fare than he had eaten in seasons.

“Mykel… you’re a
majer, now? A real majer?” asked Viencet.

“Where have you been,
Viencet?” asked Bortal. “Hiding in the cellar?”

“Ah… studying…”

“With that young
Dalya?” probed Sesalia.

Viencet flushed.
“She’s smart…” His words trailed off.

“Well, he is a
majer,” announced Olent. “My son, the commander of a battalion, and only twenty
seven years old.”

“They’re saying that
the Myrmidons lost some pteridons out east,” offered Viencet quickly. “Did you
hear about that?”

“People are always
saying things,” replied Mykel with a smile. “Who’s been telling you those
stories?”

“It was Trebyl, and
he got it from his uncle. What he says has always been right before.”

“It doesn’t mean it
is now.”

“He claims that it
proves the ancients are still around, some of ‘em, anyway, because the ancients
are the only thing that can kill pteridons.”

“It’s a good story,”
Mykel said. “Maybe you should become an Ancienteer.”

“Nah…” Viencet shook
his head. “They’ll believe anything. We know the ancients existed, but soaring
through the sky without a pteridon… I can’t swallow that.”

Mykel just nodded.

“Some people,” added
Aelya. “They’ll say anything.”

Mykel took a swallow
of the wine, then another bite of the mutton pie.

“You haven’t said
much about Dramur, and how come you got promoted to majer,” Viencet pressed.

“I suppose I
haven’t,” demurred Mykel. “There’s not much to say. I managed to survive and
keep most of my company alive.”

“I’d wager you were a
hero,” said Viencet.

“No. I wasn’t a hero.
I was a moderately effective company commander when most others weren’t. I
looked good by comparison.”

“Did you kill lots
and lots of rebels?”

Mykel lifted the
heavy goblet, only brought out for special dinners, and took another sip of the
red wine. “People always get killed when they shoot at each other long enough.”

“I can’t believe—”

“Viencet,” said Olent
quietly, but forcefully, “I don’t think your brother really wants to talk about
it. Maybe later, when he comes home another time.”

Mykel silently
thanked his father. He didn’t want to talk about it, but didn’t want to
announce that publicly, either.

“And none of the
Dramuran women took a liking to you?” teased Sesalia, after a moment of
silence.

“I saw very few,
almost none,” Mykel said with a laugh,

“Except from a
distance. Most of those were trying to stay out of our sight.” He wasn’t about
to mention Rachyla, especially since he would never see her again, and since
she’d hardly been the friendliest toward him. But then, had their situations
been reversed, he doubted that he would have been all that friendly, either.

“You must have been
busy,” offered Bortal. “Corylt says that his captain never has a free moment.”

“We’re always busy.”
Nodding absently in agreement, Mykel looked at Sesalia, heavy with the child to
come, seeing not one aura, but two, the second almost a ghost of hers, but
growing stronger, he knew. That had to be a part of his talent, the talent that
had started with his being able to aim and fire a rifle more accurately than
almost anyone, and now seemed to be growing. What else could he expect? Was
that the talent that the ancient soarer had told him to find? Or was there
something else?

“Mykel? Mykel?”

At Sesalia’s voice,
he almost jumped, but managed a smile. “Yes?”

“You were looking at
me so strangely.”

“Oh… I’m sorry. I
guess I’m still more tired than I thought.” That wasn’t it at all, but better
to say so than what he thought. Where would that talent lead him?

He forced a smile.
“Are there any sweets?”

Dainyl and Lystrana
lay side by side in the darkness of their bedchamber, warm covers over them.
Dainyl’s fingers twined around hers.

“When do you go to
Alustre?” she asked, her voice soft, but not sleepy.

“On Duadi.”

“Do you know what the
Highest truly wants?”

“He hasn’t said. Not
exactly. He wants my impressions about Submarshal Alcyna. He has something else
in mind.”

“As he did with your
briefing the Duarch. You’re still upset about your meeting with him, aren’t
you?”

Dainyl thought about
dismissing her concerns, but Lystrana would see through him. She always had.
“Yes. There’s tremendous Talent there, but…”

“But what?”

“It’s as though he
wears a blindfold about some things. I tried to point out the problems with
lifeforce, and how the landers and indigens just don’t understand the way the
world works, and he kept talking about how we needed to increase the lifeforce
and how fortunate we were to have a child, and how Kytrana would see the
transfer of the Master Scepter here to Acorus. One moment he was smiling, and
the next it was as though he were ready to turn his Talent on me, especially
when he talked about Zelyert and Shastylt.”

“He told you not to
trust them. Was that unwise?”

“No. We know that.”
Dainyl took a deep breath. “But… I don’t trust the Duarch, either I feel that
his heart is better than theirs, but that—I said this before—he is blinded. He
will do anything to bring the master scepter here.”

“The loyalty
imprint,” suggested Lystrana. “That is why those who seek power do not wish to
be Duarch.”

“I feel as though I’m
trapped between two sets of masters. The Highest and the marshal see the world
as it is, but I don’t trust what they have in mind, even if I don’t know what
it is. The Duarch—he would do the best he could, so long as it does not
conflict with what the Archon requires. He has great Talent, but how he might
use that Talent is hampered because the imprint does not allow him to see all
that is before his eyes. Both would destroy those who disagree with their
visions.” Dainyl turned and reached out with his free hand, letting his fingers
touch the cheek and jawlinc of his wife.

“So you must not show
any disagreement. That has always been so for a prudent alector. What you have
seen changes nothing.”

Dainyl laughed, once.
“I had hoped that seeing more would provide greater hope, not less. Matters
need to change. Even the ancient soarer said something like that.”

“Was she talking
about you, or about all alectors?”

“I had thought she
was speaking to me, as I told you the other night, but now… I don’t know.”

“You are Submarshal,
and someday you will be marshal. That will give you the opportunity to change
matters.”

“Nothing changes
quickly.”

Lystrana turned
toward him and brushed his cheek with her lips. “We can only do what we can.”

“I didn’t tell you
everything about the Cadmian captain,” Dainyl said slowly.

“I had thought you
held something back.”

“He has Talent. He
used it to save me. The Highest told me that landers with Talent had to be
destroyed.”

“That has always been
the policy,” Lystrana said softly.

“I couldn’t do it. I
kept thinking about how he nearly died to save me, so that I could come back to
you and Kytrana. He’s so young, not for a lander, I suppose, but…”

“You think that the
marshal will discover your failure?”

“No. Talent can
emerge at any time.”

“Then why do you
worry? He serves the Duarchy. It’s not as though he happens to be a wild
Talent, like that one in Hyalt.”

“I still worry. He
did more than I did to stop the revolt in Dramur.”

“You succeeded in the
end.”

“But… without the
captain I would not have. Are we too frightened of Talent in landers? Or am I
too frightened to make the hard choices?”

Lystrana’s fingers
squeezed his. “You made the choice, and we will live with what comes of it.”

Dainyl looked up into
the darkness. He had made the choice, an alector’s choice.