Princeps: A Novel in the Imager Portfolio (74 page)

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Authors: L. E. Modesitt Jr.

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“Why there?” asked Quaeryt warily. “What about Vaelora?”

“Because … when it became clear that you—or the Nameless,” added Bhayar archly, “had succeeded in annihilating the Bovarian forces attacking Ferravyl, I sent for Vaelora. I had no idea if you would live. I just said that you’d been wounded and requested her presence. I imagine she has been riding eight glasses out of every ten.”

“Why else?” asked Quaeryt, although he had a very good idea why Bhayar wanted him to recover at Nordruil.

“Because the war with Bovaria has just begun … and because you couldn’t even start to ride to Solis for a week at best, maybe not for several weeks. The time you would have taken traveling to and from Solis will not be wasted. It will take that long, if not slightly longer, to reorganize and refit the army for the campaign ahead—”

“And for the other regiments you called up to arrive,” interjected Quaeryt.

“For the campaign ahead,” continued Bhayar implacably, “in which you will play a vital role, I am certain. While you recover at Nordruil, you and Vaelora can discuss how both of you can help in such matters…”

Quaeryt could not have expected anything else, he supposed. “Not Vaelora. Don’t bring her into it—”

“I won’t, not so long as I can count on you.”

You truly are a bastard.
Quaeryt didn’t speak those words. “What other choice do we have?” He kept his voice level.

“Not much. You more than anyone should know what Kharst—or any other ruler—would do … has done to imagers and scholars.”

“Why do you think I’ve done what I’ve done—even before Vaelora?”

“As soon as you’re able, I’ll have escorts help you to Nordruil to wait for her. You should enjoy Nordruil,” said Bhayar pleasantly. “So should Vaelora.”

I’ll enjoy making you pay double when the time comes … and Vaelora can help me figure out how.
“I’m certain we will.” He forced himself to remember that Vaelora would be at Nordruil. Soon, he hoped. Soon …

Then, at that, he smiled, ignoring the frown on Bhayar’s face.

Quaeryt swayed slightly in the saddle of the mare as he neared the midsection of the old fortified bridge across the Aluse, guiding the mare to the left side of the span away from the damaged roadbed and wall ahead on the right.

“Are you all right, sir?” asked Undercaptain Jusaph, turning back to watch Quaeryt.

“I’m fine.” Quaeryt forced heartiness he didn’t feel in his voice. Even after resting and recuperating for another three days since waking up, his entire body ached, and he had bruises and strained muscles in improbable locations.

“Yes, sir.” Jusaph’s voice contained doubt, and he continued to look back every few yards as they rode past the stoneworkers and engineers already working to repair the damaged bridge.

Quaeryt straightened himself in the saddle, trying not to wince, and turned his eyes to the southwest once he was clear of the workers and riding down the bridge’s unharmed southern span. Everywhere he looked there were wagons and carts moving, and hundreds of troopers toiling in the steamy air to bury the Bovarian dead before the sun of full summer corrupted the bodies. Two long and deep trenches stretched across the front of the low bluff of the triangle below which the rivers met, and in those trenches lay body after body. Another square pit had been dug, closer to the Narrows Bridge, then filled and heaped up with earth packed into a pyramid. That had to be the grave for the Telaryn fallen, Quaeryt knew, although no one had told him. In fact, few had spoken to him, except for Skarpa, Zhelan, and Shaelyt. And, of course, Bhayar.

Quaeryt looked back at Jusaph, noting the muffled murmurs of the two squads of first company escorting him to Nordruil. He could not hear the words and was just as glad he could not. Yet what else could he have done?

He looked ahead at where the road branched below the southern approach to the bridge, the one turning westward and then running south along the smaller river past the dark stone structure that he and the imagers had created to span the Vyl—and destroy thousands of Bovarians. That dark structure pointed like a crossbow quarrel toward Bovaria … and Variana, like the quarrel that once might have killed him, and had forced him to develop the imaging abilities that had seemed inevitably to require greater and greater destruction on his part.

Deliberately—and abruptly—he turned his eyes to the road leading southeast, first along the greenery of the river and then angling southwest toward Nordruil. Bhayar had said the holding was peaceful and quiet. He could use both.

He smiled faintly as he turned the mare southeast where the roads split, riding toward a respite, a time of rest … and a place where he could wait for Vaelora.

Vaelora …

He smiled once more.

Tor Books by L. E. Modesitt, Jr.

The Imager Portfolio

Imager

Imager’s Challenge

Imager’s Intrigue

Scholar

Princeps

The Corean Chronicles

Legacies

Darknesses

Scepters

Alector’s Choice

Cadmian’s Choice

Soarer’s Choice

The Lord-Protector’s Daughter

Lady-Protector

The Saga of Recluce

The Magic of Recluce

The Towers of the Sunset

The Magic Engineer

The Order War

The Death of Chaos

Fall of Angels

The Chaos Balance

The White Order

Colors of Chaos

Magi’i of Cyador

Scion of Cyador

Wellspring of Chaos

Ordermaster

Natural Ordermage

Mage-Guard of Hamor

Arms-Commander

The Spellsong Cycle

The Soprano Sorceress

The Spellsong War

Darksong Rising

The Shadow Sorceress

Shadowsinger

The Ecolitan Matter

Empire & Ecolitan

(
comprising
The Ecolitan Operation
and
The Ecologic Secession)

Ecolitan Prime

(
comprising
The Ecologic Envoy
and
The Ecolitan Enigma)

The Forever Hero

(
comprising
Dawn for a Distant Earth, The Silent Warrior,
and
In Endless Twilight)

Timegod’s World

(
comprising
Timediver’s Dawn
and
The Timegod)

The Ghost Books

Of Tangible Ghosts

The Ghost of the Revelator

Ghost of the White Nights

Ghost of Columbia

(
comprising
Of Tangible Ghosts
and
The Ghost of the Revelator)

The Hammer of Darkness

The Green Progression

The Parafaith War

Adiamante

Gravity Dreams

Octagonal Raven

Archform: Beauty

The Ethos Effect

Flash

The Eternity Artifact

The Elysium Commission

Viewpoints Critical

Haze

Empress of Eternity

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is the
New York Times
bestselling author of the Saga of Recluce. He lives in Cedar City, Utah.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.