Magi'i of Cyador (39 page)

Lorn glances at the wall once more, sensing the cascading webs of chaos that hold back the dark order back. "Ser!"

Lorn follows the yell and the gesture from one of the junior lancers. In the midst of the dead soil, perhaps a hundred cubits west of the wall road, rising from the salt-dead soil is a sprout of green, a shoot that is nearly three cubits high and beginning to branch out.

Lorn can sense the pulse of dark order within the green, and it almost seems as though the shoot is growing as he studies it. "Lances ready," he orders Kusyl.

"First squad! Form up! Lances ready!"

"Have them attack and discharge."

"First duad! Advance and discharge!"

Lorn watches as the first two lancers ride toward the green sprout, then rein up ten cubits short of the growth, train their lances, and discharge them. Golden-white chaos floods over the greenery, but little occurs except a shivering of the growth that is nearly shoulder high on the lancers' mounts.

"Second duad!"

As the first pair turns and rides to the rear of the column, the next two lancers ride forward and repeat the effort.

Lorn watches. It takes six lancers before the growth blackens and begins to crumble, and four more before nothing remains.

"Ser! There's no sign of anything remaining," calls Kusyl. "Good. Have them reform while I ready the message to the Engineers."

"Yes, ser."

Lorn turns the gelding toward the wall, reining up perhaps five cubits from the shimmering granite beside one of the chaos-pulsing crystal wards. There, he takes out the grease pencil and jots down the ward number on the blank message scroll. "Ward West 163 South, 150 cubits due west of the wall road. One sprout three cubits high. Destroyed with fire-lances." Then he signs the missive and rolls it, riding back toward the column that has reformed. He also makes a note of the location on a blank scroll for himself.

"Ser?" asks the squad leader.

"Kusyl, here's the message to the Mirror Engineers at Westend. Pick someone to ride ahead and deliver it."

"Yes, ser." The squad leader scans the ranks. "Prytr! Forward!" A small and wiry lancer ranker moves his mount to the side and rides along the side of the column, where he reins up. "Yes, sers?"

Kusyl extends the scroll. "You're acting as messenger. Take the captain's scroll directly to the duty desk of the Mirror Engineers at Westend."

"Yes, ser."

As Prytr rides off ahead of the column, and as the first squad resumes its measured pace and study of the wall and the deadland, Lorn glances back at the residual chaos, slowly leaching away from where solid black order and focused white-gold chaos had met. The firelances have destroyed the sprout, and infused the trunk with enough chaos to destroy the root structure, from what Lorn can sense. That he will tell no one. And it has taken full charges from a half-score of lances to destroy one thin green growth.

Under what seems an unseasonably warm winter sun, his eyes fix on that distant spot where the white shimmering line of ward-wall merges with the darker bulk of the Accursed Forest and the horizon. Ahead of them, twenty kays or so, there is another chaos tower, just as the midpoint chaos tower lies thirty kays behind them.

Yet the chaos towers all over Cyador are weakening. How much longer will these hold, and what will hold the Accursed Forest back when they fail? Lorn snorts to himself. Unless he can determine a way to deal with both the Forest and Maran before Maran deals with him-and without alerting anyone else-Lorn will find himself failing long before the towers do.

He keeps riding, his eyes scanning the wall and the dead land stretching out from the white granite chaos bulwark.

LXV

The compound at Westend is a smaller version of that at Geliendra- whitened granite buildings within a square granite wall, polished oak timbered gates that stand open, and a spacious courtyard with smooth granite paving stones set edge to edge with scarcely space for the thinnest of knife-blades between them.

The sun hangs just above the western wall of the compound as Lorn leads his squads of replacement lancers in through the gates. Even before Lorn can dismount and lead his gelding into the smaller stables reserved for the officers passing through or posted at Westend, a figure hurries across the spotless white paving stones of the courtyard.

"Captain!"

Lorn turns in the saddle to see a man wearing a uniform cut like that of a lancer, but in the shimmering white of a magus, and with a tunic piped with red trim. He wears the triple-linked and lightning-crossed bars of a majer on his collar.

"Yes, ser?"

"Gebynet, Majer, Mirror Engineers. I assume you're Captain Lorn- the one who sent the message earlier today?" asks the Engineer majer.

"Yes, ser." Lorn dismounts and waits for the other to continue.

Gebynet smiles. "There's no problem. I wanted to thank you for your diligence and your accurate report. I also wanted to catch you. After you get your lancers settled, if you'd join me in the officer's dining hall... there are some things we should go over."

"I hope I didn't do something wrong." Lorn lets a worried frown creep across his face.

"No. The report was by the manual. But... if you encountered that, you may see worse on the trip to Jakaafra.... These things come in spurts, and I'd like to fill you in... just in case."

Lorn returns the smile. "I can use all the knowledge you'd like to share."

"I'll see you in a bit, then." Gebynet, a half head shorter than Lorn, turns and bustles across the courtyard.

As the sun drops below the compound walls, and shadows cover the white granite paving stones, Lorn walks the gelding into the stables, glancing around, looking for a hint of where to stable the gelding.

"Captain... I'll take your mount, if you would." A youth emerges from a stall, setting a pitchfork against the stall wall.

"Thank you." Lorn hands the reins to the stableboy, then unfastens the two green bags from behind his saddle.

"He'll be in the second stall here."

Lorn fumbles for a copper.

"Oh, no, ser. We're paid by the Mirror Engineers."

"Well... thank you."

"You're welcome, ser." The dark-haired youth smiles as he leads the gelding toward the stall.

Lorn purses his lips, then lifts his gear and heads out of the stable.

There are two officers' rooms empty, each with little more than a bunk, a table with a lamp, and wall pegs on which to hang uniforms and gear. Lorn chooses the second, seemingly slightly larger, and slides the bags under the narrow bunk. Then he closes the door, hoping that his gear- and the sabre wrapped within it-will be safe for a time. It should be, but he wonders. He'd once studied wards, years back, and read about the use of chaos-formed order to create a light-shield.

Maybe he should try that-but not at the moment, he decides, as he heads toward the officers' dining room.

Gebynet stands by a table for four with another Mirror Engineer, apparently waiting for the Mirror Lancer captain.

Lorn crosses the room that holds four tables, all vacant except for the one, and bows to the two engineers.

"Glad you could join us, Captain... Lorn, is it?" ventures the majer.

"Lorn. I appreciate your taking the time to fill me in."

Gebynet inclines his head to the other engineer. "This is Captain Sherpyt. He's in charge of the Second Heavy Engineers here at Westend." The senior engineer gestures around the small dining area. "Both Lancer patrol companies are out at the waystations tonight." Then he snorts. "Of course, each one's out seven out of eight nights. Much rather be an Engineer, thank you."

The three seat themselves, Lorn with Gebynet on his left, Sherpyt on his right.

On the bare wood of the table are four bowls, four large spoons, four heavy glass goblets, and a single bottle of wine-Byrdyn, Lorn suspects from the color and the aroma he can smell as Gebynet fills the three heavy glass goblets.

"The food isn't much," declares the majer. "We all eat the same, but the men's dining area is much noisier, and the service is better here."

"Not much," suggests Sherpyt. "That's why you always bring the wine."

"Of course." Gebynet smiles. "While we're waiting, I'll start." The majer takes a sip of his Byrdyn. "How tall was the shoot you fired?"

"Three cubits, maybe a shade more."

"Now... the Fifth Forest Company passed that area no more than two days before, and they saw nothing," Gebynet points out, looking at Lorn.

"I don't know anything that will grow a cubit and a half a day," Lorn concedes.

"It could be a root, or a seedling that was launched from the Forest."

"If it's a root, you'll hear lots of heavy equipment moving in the morning," adds Sherpyt morosely. "We'll be working there for a good eight-day."

Lorn does not speculate or reveal his sense that no root from the Accursed Forest had been involved. "I hope it wasn't a root."

"It could have been worse. If you hadn't been there, that shoot would have turned into a tree eight to ten cubits tall by the next patrol."

Lorn fingers his chin. "I don't think all my firelances could have burned something that large down."

"That's where Sherpyt and his heavy equipment come in," suggests Gebynet. "But most don't grow quite that fast." He pauses. "You're sure it was that tall?"

"At least. It was shoulder high on the mounts."

The Engineer majer shakes his head, then takes another swallow of the Byrdyn. "It could be that we'll have another breakout period. That's when you get shoots, roots, and trunks falling across the wall everywhere. Stun lizards crawling into the nearby villages. Cattle killed by the big cats... all sorts of amusing things."

"How do you even find the cats?"

"We don't find them all. That's why stun lizards and crocodators show up in the Great Canal or in the rivers. That's why there are giant cats throughout this part of Cyador... but the offspring of those that survive are smaller than those that first escape." Gebynet's lips twist into a crooked smile. "The animals aren't the problem; the trees and the vines and bushes are."

"Speak for yourself, majer," suggests Sherpyt.

"Ah... well, it shouldn't affect you, Captain Lorn, but the cats and stun lizards seem to seek out people who handle chaos-mages especially, and then engineers like Sherpyt who handle chaos-powered equipment."

"Have any attacked you?"

Sherpyt pulls back his sleeve. A long red gash runs up his forearm, disappearing under the white shimmercloth. "There's another on my leg. Two different attacks."

"That's another reason why all the Engineers on duty beyond the compound carry the short firelances in sheaths," Gebynet explains.

A server in solid green appears with a casserole dish, and a basket of bread, then vanishes without speaking.

"Best we eat while it's hot." Gebynet serves himself two ladlefuls of the mutton stew, consisting mostly of mutton chunks, carrots, and some other root vegetable that Lorn does not recognize by sight. Gebynet passes the casserole to Lorn, and breaks off a chunk of the rye bread. "Eat hearty."

The primary taste of the stew is salt. The carrots are orange mush, while the roots have been cooked until they are soft masses held together with stringy fibers. Lorn alternates stew, bread, and very small sips of the Byrdyn.

"Exactly what do engineers do here?" asks Lorn after several mouthfuls. "Besides destroying growth that escapes from the Forest. Or is that all?"

"We're the ones who repair the wall if it gets breached. That doesn't happen often," the majer explains. "We also repair anything else that needs it."

"How often?" Lorn persists.

Gebynet frowns, then wrinkles his forehead. "Only about once or twice a year, and those aren't big breaches-usually only a course or two of stone-and replacing the cables. That's the harder part because you have to break the connections on two of the wards, and that usually means replacing those as well."

Lorn lifts his eyebrows, hoping that the Engineer majer will add more.

"Repeated chaos flows make anything brittle. The wards have chaos flowing through them all the time. They're solid when they're in place, but if anything breaks through the chaos net-or moves them-most of them shatter."

Lorn takes more of the stew, and more bread, and enough of a sip of the wine to provide a hint of seasoning, pondering what the two engineers have conveyed. "You're more like Magi'i than Lancers...."

"Almost all of the officers are about the same as third or fourth level mage adepts," concurs Gebynet. "At some point, it was suggested to each of us that our talents might be better used in the Engineers."

"We're Magi'i with tools, Lorn," adds Sherpyt. "With tools and with far less status and power."

Lorn frowns.

"Have you ever seen a Mirror Engineer in Cyad?"

The Lancer officer shakes his head.

"You never will." Sherpyt delivers his words in a matter-of-fact tone that offers more caution than would any amount of bitterness or emotion. "When they need us to work on a fireship, it goes to the yard at Fyrad. The Magi'i handle chaos repairs in Cyad."

Lorn nods.

"Our talents are necessary, and best kept where they can be employed most fully," Sherpyt adds.

"Just like those lancer officers who are unwise enough to reveal that they can handle chaos," Gebynet adds smoothly. "But enough of details. I trust you understand why we wanted to let you know why we appreciated your timely report on that shoot, and why such reports save us in the Engineers from even greater... difficulties."

"I had not realized the speed with which the Accursed Forest grew." Lorn takes a last mouthful of the stew, knowing he can stomach no more.

"Until they have seen it with their own eyes, most do not," answers Gebynet.

"It can be frightening," agrees Sherpyt, pushing his bowl away, and taking a slow sip of the Byrdyn.

Lorn finds himself yawning.

"You have had a long patrol already, with another three days to go." The Engineer majer lifts an empty glass. "Do not let us keep you."

Lorn rises. "I must thank you both for the wine, the hospitality, and for enlightening me about my duties and the dangers that accompany them."