Magi'i of Cyador (7 page)

"How unfortunate. How very unfortunate." Rynst lifts his eyebrows. "Then we cannot suspect the Hand of the Emperor?"

"No... not in a dispute between traders, not unless it is far more than it seems to be. But then, you know that." Chyenfel smiles lazily. "You would like to know who the Hand is, would you not?"

"Many would."

"True," muses Chyenfel. His face hardens. "Perhaps, just perhaps, the most unfortunate demise of this Aljak may put an end to a string of recent disappearances among the merchanters."

"You do think it was retribution?" Rynst turns so that the afternoon sun falls full on his back, bright if cold in the green-blue sky, and so that he can watch both the First Magus more closely and the harbor.

"It probably was, but we don't know who killed Aljak." Chyenfel offers a theatrical shrug. "Unhappily, the man comes from a prominent Hamorian trading family. They have threatened a ten percent increase in the cost of Hamorian goods... or so Bluoyal tells me."

"They cannot make that stick, not when the Austrans will bring the same goods for a five percent increase. Then, the Hamorians, should they Want the trade, would have to go back to the old prices."

"That is true, and even Bluoyal would agree. Yet... there is one thing."

"Oh?" offers the Majer-Commander warily.

"There was a trace of chaos beneath all the charred goods and ashes."

"You have assured me that all your Magi'i would not do such."

Chyenfel nods. "I have already spoken with every magus. All are innocent. None are hiding anything."

"Does that mean a wild chaos wielder? Or that one of your Magi'i can evade the truthreading?"

"Even those few skilled at truthreading cannot evade another's reading. Since no Magi'i are involved, it mean the chaos was directed in another fashion. There was no spray. That I could tell even after the fire, and wild types do not have that kind of control."

"So... a former Magi'i?"

"Those who have such talents are weeded out early-they are dead or in the lancers on the frontier." Chyenfel fingers his smooth chin. "And we follow those who hold chaos with the glasses until they can no longer do so or until they die. None have been detected in Cyad in seasons, if not years."

"You have the impossible, then, and that is less than satisfactory, especially in these times."

"It could have been a small firelance-as your guards for the Emperor carry," suggests Chyenfel almost idly.

"I would be most pleased to accompany you as you question each of them." Rynst smiles tightly.

"I thought you would be." Chyenfel returns the smile.

XI

Two figures in blue sit on a carved wooden bench that overlooks the harbor of Cyad. Below the low hill, a half-dozen ships are tied at the white piers. Cargo carts roll along the granite wharves, carts filled with the wool brought from Analeria, cotton from Hamor across the Eastern Ocean, tin ingots from Austra, and other goods from wherever the tall-masted ships sail. A single white-hulled fireship is moored at the lancer pier.

The redheaded woman shivers in the cool breeze. "Lorn?" Ryalth pauses. "Aren't you cold?"

"Me? No."

"I am." She eases next to him, so that their sides touch. "You're warm, like a banked fire, or the sun."

"I'd rather not talk about fires."

"I have a gift for you." Ryalth's voice is soft.

"You don't have to give me anything," Lorn insists, as he turns. "The coins and the strongbox are for you. I told you that. Don't spend them on me."

"It's not that kind of gift. It's something I've had for a long time."

Lorn raises his eyebrows. "You don't have to do anything like that for me. You know that."

"I know I don't have to. This is because I want to." Her smile is warm, even as she shivers again.

Lorn grins, and puts an arm around her. "You are cold."

"That helps. You're warm." She pauses, tilting her head and looking at him directly. "Do you ever wonder where the Firstborn came from? What they were like?"

Lorn frowns and shrugs. "They came and used the chaos-towers to create Cyad and Cyador. They imprisoned the Accursed Forest and opened the lands of the east for us. They built the firewagons and-"

"That's history," Ryalth interrupts him gently. "We know a lot about what they did. But all the books and scrolls talk about is that they came from the Rational Stars and what they built once they came here. Don't you wonder about them? What kind of people were they?"

"They were people like us." Lorn laughs gently, turns and touches her cheek with his right hand, then bends forward and brushes her cheek with his lips.

Ryalth gently disengages him. "Were they?" His brow wrinkles. "First you talk about a gift, and now..."

"It's all the same thing." She extends a shimmering oblong. "It's here."

"What is it?"

"It's an old, old book. My mother's mother had it. No one knew she did. Father said no one could make anything like that then, or, I suppose, today. He told me to keep it. Never to sell it, no matter what I was offered."

Lorn looks into her deep blue eyes. "Don't give it to me, then. It's yours."

"Then you'll have to keep it for me," she says.

"I couldn't do anything like that..."

"Open it to where the leather marker is. I want you to read me the words there." Ryalth forces the thin volume into his hands.

Lorn takes the book, its cover as unmarked and as smooth as if it had been created in his fingers at that very moment. He turns it sideways, seeing the light flare across the silvered green binding fabric as the winter sun's rays strike it.

"Open it," Ryalth insists.

He slides open the book, his fingers almost slipping on the pages that are more like shimmercloth than paper or parchment, a surface so smooth it makes shimmercloth rough by comparison. The letters are clear, but somehow slightly more tilted and angular than Lorn is used to reading.

"That one." The redhead points.

Lorn's eyes go to the title. He reads it... and continues.

SHOULD I RECALL THE RATIONAL STARS

There I had a tower for the skies,

where the rooms were clear,

and the music filled the walls.

The light clothed the halls,

and the days were long.

The nights were song.

Should I recall the Rational Stars?

Or hold my ruin on this hill

where new-raised walls are still,

Perfect granite set jagged on the dawn,

with striped awnings spread across the lawn.

Then, gold was known as gold,

and long slow stories could be told.

White flowers filled the darkest room,

flowers that never lost their bloom.

Should I recall the Rational Stars?

And should I raise anew

old chaos-towers in the darkest wood,

leaving nothing where the forest stood,

turning the dark of day to sunlit pride,

to see frail windows throw the rainbow wide,

with passages and courts in bloom

and white flowers in the darkest room?

Should I recall the Rational Stars?

I had a tower once, across heavens from here,

with alabaster edges and silver domes.

Raised above the fields and homes,

it flagged my fires, flew my fear.

Oh... take these new lake isles and green green seas;

take these sylvan ponds and soaring trees;

take these desert dunes and sunswept sands,

and pour them through your empty hands.

Lorn swallows, despite his resolve not to show any expression.

"It's sad, isn't it?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know."

"You do know," she insists.

"Why... why did you bring this?"

"Because it's yours now. Because I want you to keep it and read every poem in it."

"It's yours," he insists once more.

"You have to keep it and read from it. At least every few days. Promise me."

"I promise." Lorn nods slowly. "You don't sound like a merchanter lady now."

"Do you think that we're all just one thing? That I can only be a hard trader lady? That you can only be a logical magus?"

"You have to concentrate to be good."

"You... we... have some time for other things." She grins. "Other things besides making love, too."

He looks down at the book, mock-mournfully. "Are you making me choose?"

"Silly man! We have time for both."

Lorn looks at the green-silvered cover, so fresh, and so spotless, and so ancient, and he wonders.

XII

Wearing the merchanter shimmercloth blues and blue boots, Lorn walks hurriedly along the Road of Benevolent Commerce. His destination is the building that serves the Clanless Traders, the structure in which Ryalth has opened a very small office, mainly, he suspects, to legitimize her status as a woman free trader. He hurries because he has seen his father walking up the steps to Lector Chyenfel's study in the Quarter of the Magi'i. That had happened in midafternoon, as Lorn had passed along the lower Tower corridor-and Lorn had known at that moment that he was now headed for lancer training.

There might have been another reason for Chyenfel to summon Lorn's father, but Lorn strongly doubts it, and that means he has little enough time before he is sent off for lancer training. Far too little time for what needs to be done, because he has no doubts that once the Lectors know he has been notified, he will be well watched until he is out of Cyad, and probably far longer than that. He hopes the summons comes for his studies, and not because of anything else-such as the chaos compulsion he used on Halthor... but no one has said anything, and Ryalth has only mentioned the trader's death as an accident.

The absolute certainty in his father's voice was more than enough to discourage Lorn, for about magely matters, he knows his father is always correct. He pushes away those thoughts as he casually studies the street he travels.

No one he knows-or who knows him-looks out from the Empty Quarter as he passes the coffee house, but the awning that shields the vacant outside tables is furled, and any patrons are well inside and out of the wind.

The air holds an icy chill, despite the bright winter sunlight, and the salt air bites at his exposed face and neck and hands.

He stops and waits on the edge of Third Harbor Way West as a white-lacquered enclosed carriage, drawn by a matched pair of white mares, whispers past him. A gust of wind brings a hint of warmth, and the smell of fresh-baked bread, followed by the tiniest hint of erhenflower scent, possibly from the woman seated in the shielded carriage.

Two lancer rankers stand on the far corner, their eyes following the carriage, and Lorn cannot help but smile at their all too obvious interest. Then, will he end up standing on a corner in some out-of-the-way town like Syadtar? Or one of the towns bordering the Accursed Forest-like Geliendra or Jakaafra?

Lorn shakes his head, then crosses the Way and takes the white stone sidewalk on the far side down the gentle slope of the Third Harbor Way to the lower plaza-the merchanters' plaza. Even in the late afternoon chill, a handful of the green and white striped awnings remain up over a few carts. Lorn makes his way around the carts toward the squat white structure in the northwest corner of the plaza, his boots nearly silent on the hard white paving stones.

Once he has stepped through the squared open archway of the Clan-less Traders' building and is out of the wind, Lorn can feel his face begin to thaw. Despite the near-abandoned look of the plaza from outside, within the building is filled with figures in blue, as well as some in red, or green, or white. None seem to mark the passage of the enumerator Lorn emulates, at least not beyond an occasional frown, as he takes the wide central stairs at the back of the covered central hall flanked by balconies that rises all three stories.

Ryalth's trading place is little more than a cubby with two doors swung wide at the back of the third level, so far into the northeast corner that only the balcony railings can be seen from her doors. The redhead sits behind a true desk with drawers, an antique of battered and time-darkened white oak, writing in what appears to be a ledger.

As Lorn steps through the open doors, he clears his throat, and with a hint of a smile, asks, "Lady Trader?"

"Yes?" Ryalth looks up and her mouth opens, then closes.

Lorn steps forward until his trousers brush the edge of the desk. "I wished to see you, honored trader." His smile is both tentative and guileless.

"You shouldn't be here-not at this time of day. Enumerators' times are either first thing in the morning or close to the close," Ryalth murmurs, then adds more loudly, "I would that you had come at a more appropriate time, young ser."

"I won't be able to do that," Lorn whispers. "I'll be leaving Cyad tomorrow or the next day, from what I've overheard, and there's nothing I can do about it, and I couldn't have come to see you once they told me." He cocks his head inquisitively, and says in a normal voice. "I apologize, honored trader, but I was nearby, and thought I would not be presuming too much. I do apologize."

"You're leaving-Like that?" she murmurs. "Why?"

"Because I'm not a dedicated enough believer for the senior Magi'i, and I'm either leaving, or I'll be found dead in a chaos transfer accident." His voice is low. "I care for you... and I wanted to let you know. If I wait until it's official, then I couldn't tell you." Ryalth shakes her head ruefully.

He slips a purse into her hand. "Business. I'll be back, one way or another, and I couldn't take these. I wouldn't have them without you. Use them as you can." He offers a warm smile.

"A purse? Like that, and you expect me to wait for you? As if I were bought and paid for like... cotton?"

"No." Lorn meets her eyes. "I care for you, well beyond our shared interests." He swallows and shrugs. "I can't ask you much... not with what's happening. But if you'd wait... at least a bit."

"I'd have to. Then... we'll see." Ryalth laughs softly, not quite bitterly. "But you have to take the book and read it... all of it."

"You're sure? I could be gone for years."