Soarers Choice (77 page)

The
columned entry way was empty as well. Beyond, halfway across the high arched
entry hall, he saw a longhaired figure sprawled on the green and gold marble.
As he neared her, he could sense she was dead. From the waist up, she was — or
had been — a young alectress. Below the waist, she was foreshortened, smaller,
more like an indigen.

Had
she tried to link to the world — and failed?

Dainyl
shook his head again and hurried toward the rear corridor that would lead to
the RA’s quarters. Then he stopped. Lystrana wouldn’t have been in the quarters
when whatever the ancients had done had occurred. She would have been in the
RA’s study.

He’d
never been there, but all of the regional alectors had studies on the upper level.
He headed up the center staircase at the back of the vaulted entry hall. Just
beyond the landing at the top of the marble staircase was another set of
shimmersilk garments, but they had belonged to an alector.

Dainyl
had no
i.e.
where her study might have been. So,
with dread, he quickly surveyed each and every chamber on the upper level. He
found another score of shimmersilks, but none that were hers. Even in the RA’s
main chambers in the southwest corner, he found no sign of her, except for a
slightly disarrayed stack of papers on the table desk that was clearly hers.

In
the growing gloom of twilight, he took a deep breath. She still might be all
right. He turned and headed back down to the lower level and the rear corridor
that led to the RA’s quarters. His boots clicked on the marble, the only sound
he heard beside that of his own breathing.

The
door from the complex to the quarters was ajar, and unlocked. Dainyl moistened
his lips and stepped into the small foyer. He glanced around. No lights were
lit. He saw no one and heard nothing.

“Lystrana!”

The
only reply was silence.

Slowly,
he walked down the main hallway. There were no shimmersilks in the hall or in
the larger front foyer. The outside door to the entrance Dainyl had always used
was locked. He unlocked and opened it. The ironwork door beyond was also
locked. He closed the inner door and locked it.

“Lystrana!”

Then
he went from room to room, searching each, even the closets, and the pantry off
the kitchen. The quarters were untouched, as if she had walked out, and left
the door ajar.

He
stood in the hallway outside the bedchamber, then stepped inside. Using a flick
of Talent, he lit the old-fashioned oil lamp, thinking that he might see more
in the light, that his night sight might have missed something.

He
studied the sitting area of the bedchamber, looking closely at everything,
trying to catch a glimpse of anything that might give him an
i.e.
of where she might be or what had happened. He found
nothing — not a piece of clothing out of place, not a bloodstain, a spilled
glass ... nothing at all.

Finally,
he moved to the dressing room, where he also lit the lamp.

As
he looked up, he saw a motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned quickly,
throwing up shields, even before he confronted the image in the wall mirror.
The figure was somewhat shorter than Dainyl, with a lightly tanned face,
brilliant green eyes, a strong nose, and hair that was several shades darker
than iron-gray — not the color of an aging lander, but a vigorous healthy gray.
The image wore shimmersilk greens with rolled-up jacket sleeves and trousers
that were too large.

Dainyl
raised a hand. So did the image.

The
image was his. He was the image, and he looked like a lander with dark gray
hair, if somewhat larger than the tallest of landers he had seen. No longer a
black-haired and white-faced alector, he was a lander with Talent.

A
lander with Talent? He shuddered. He’d been warned, but he still couldn’t
believe it had happened.

Finally,
he turned away from the image that was him — and wasn’t. He still had to find
Lystrana. At the worst, he had to know.

Slowly,
painstakingly, he began to study the dressing chamber, fearing he would find
crumpled shimmersilk, and hoping that he would not. He checked the garments
hung there, but all that she had brought still looked to be there, save perhaps
one, possibly two, and her toiletries were laid out on the dressing table.

Finally,
he left the dressing room and the bedchamber, and lit the lamps in each room in
the quarters, studying each one, and then snuffing the lamps when he finished
in each. He found nothing.

He
took a deep breath.

He
needed to go back to Lystrana’s study in the main building. Perhaps he had
overlooked something. He forced himself to walk deliberately back through the
rear corridor and back to the upper level.

Once
there, in her study, he lit the wall lamps and went back over every span of the
space. Again, he found nothing, but it was at least two glasses before he
returned to the quarters, having found nothing that indicated what had happened
to Lystrana — or even where she might be. He had found none of her shimmersilk
garments left and crumpled. He would have recognized them. He would have
Talent-sensed that they were hers. He still had his Talent. But what had
happened to her?

He
locked the doors behind himself, and then went to the kitchen, where he forced
himself to eat some bread and cheese, the only thing that was there that he
could eat without preparation.

Where
was she? What had happened to her? How could he find out?

As
the darkness dropped across Dereka, he lay there alone on the triple-width bed
in the bedchamber, too worried to sleep, and too exhausted to move.

Late
in the day, after Fourth Battalion and Sixteenth Company had rejoined Mykel and
Third Battalion, and after the Cadmians had done what they could to reclaim
weapons and ammunition, and after Mykel had had a chance to gather his thoughts
together, he assembled the officers and Bhoral on the north causeway to the bridge
over the Vedra.

For
all the flood, the bridge itself — and its eternastone supports — remained
untouched and secure. South of where they stood on the approach to the bridge,
below the bluffs, steam and fog still rose from the river, and the warmth from
the river air mixed with the chill of the growing wind out of the northwest.

As
he waited for Zendyr to join them, Mykel was all too conscious of the covert
looks from the officers, particularly from Loryalt. Most of them, with the
exception of Hamylt, seemed to be studying him when he was not looking directly
at them.

“Sorry,
sir,” offered Zendyr, hurrying up.

“Someone
has to be last,” Mykel said lightly. He waited a moment. “Any more reports on
the Squawts and Reillies? Are they regrouping?”

“No,
sir,” replied Chyndylt. “Jasakyt checked that out. They’ve all headed north.
They’re pretty much making their separate ways. It looks like they just fell
apart after you stood up to their warleaders.”

“Priests,”
murmured Loryalt.

“How
do we stand on supplies, Bhoral?”

“We
picked up some from the locals and from what the Reillies discarded. Maybe five
days, eight on short rations.”

Mykel
nodded. “There’s not that much left in Iron Stem, and no more ammunition, and
winter’s coming on. We’ve also accomplished what we can as far as our orders
go.” And we have the pay chests and what’s left in them.

Zendyr
and Bhoral nodded. A faint smile crossed Rhystan’s lips. Hamylt glanced from
Mykel to Rhystan. Sendryrk looked at the ground.

“We’re
going to Tempre,” Mykel said. “We’ll have to ride, because after that flood of
steaming water, there won’t be anything left that can take us by river.
Tempre’s halfway to Elcien, and they’ve got a good barracks in Tempre, enough
for all of us there, and there might even be ammunition in the armories there.”

“Leastwise,
in the one that’s locked underneath,” suggested Bhoral. “The Myrmidons didn’t
even know it was there, but they don’t use ammunition anyway, not for those
lances of theirs.”

“Sir?”
offered Loryalt. “The ancient... I mean ... does ... well...”

Mykel
had hoped to avoid dealing with what the soarer had said. “For better or worse,
she indicated that the alectors were gone and that we should go to Tempre.
Going to Tempre makes sense even if she hadn’t said it, and even if there are
alectors somewhere.”

“Sir?”
asked Sendryrk. “Begging your pardon ... but what if the colonel sends orders
to Iron Stem?”

“The
orders will find us, and if they do before we can get word to him, we’ll
certainly obey them. But we have a responsibility to the men as well, and I
don’t see how we could take care of them in Iron
Ste.
through the winter, not without additional provisions, and there’s no way to
get them to us, not for a long time, with all the damage on the river.”

“You’re
thinking that there’s more trouble than just here, sir?” asked Zendyr, the new
Thirteenth Company undercaptain.

“That’s
pretty clear. You saw the steaming river, and that boiling water went a long
ways. Elcien, Ludar, and Faitel have been destroyed. How much other destruction
there is besides, I don’t know. We certainly can’t do any more here, not until
spring, if then, even.” He turned to Rhystan. “Captain, you’ve scouted Borlan.”

“They’ve
got a couple of chandleries where we can get more supplies, and the inns aren’t
full.”

“We’ll
spend tonight there and head out in the morning. Pass the word. They’ve got a
quarter glass to mount up and cross the bridge.”

“Yes,
sir.”

Rhystan
waited until the other officers had left before easing closer to Mykel. “You
know more than you’ve said. The ancient?”

Mykel
nodded. “It’s not anything I can prove yet, but there’s trouble all over the
west of Corus. I don’t think we’ll be getting orders anytime soon.” Maybe not
ever.

“That’s
why you’re picking Tempre? Or because of the ancient?”

“Both.
If things get back more to normal, it makes sense, and I can explain it to the
colonel. If they don’t, cities like Tempre will need protection, and there’ll
be a place for us.”

Rhystan
offered a wry smile. “I’ll make sure the senior squad leaders know.”

“I’ll
talk more to all the officers on the ride to Tempre,” Mykel added.

“They’ll
understand.”

Mykel
hoped so.

As
he walked back to where the roan was tied, he could only hope that, somehow,
his family had escaped the disaster that had struck Faitel, whatever it had
been. But there was a cold numbness inside that told him not to expect too
much.

He
also hoped fervently that Rachyla had escaped any harm.

Early
evening seven days later found Third and Fourth Battalions camped at the way
station to the west of Krost. Mykel and the officers stood around the dying
cookfire. Although the evening was chill, the wind had died away. Overhead, the
tiny green disc of Asterta neared the zenith. Selena had set at twilight.

“The
alectors are all gone, every last one,” said Loryalt. “That’s what they were
saying in Krost.”

“Where
did they go?” asked Hamylt. “They couldn’t just disappear.”

“Why
not?” countered Culeyt. “That factor in Krost said he watched one turn to dust.
All that was left were his clothes.”

“It
doesn’t seem right,” murmured Sendryrk.

“It
didn’t seem right that a flood destroyed the ironworks and little else,”
replied Rhystan. “Or that the entire River Vedra boiled. But it happened.”

“Who’ll
need us now?” asked Zendyr.

“Tempre
will need us more than ever,” suggested Mykel. “It’s a trade city, and there’s
no one to protect it now.”

Rhystan
and Culeyt exchanged knowing glances. Chyndylt nodded, while Sendryrk looked
from face to face.

“Without
the alectors and the Myrmidons, who will protect the factors and the merchants?
Brigands and bandits — and insurgents — could almost walk in. We’re going to
offer them a deal, a very good deal. We’ll protect Tempre and the surrounding
area, at least to Krost and the Vyan Hills, and they’ll pay us.”

“Why
would they do that?” asked Hamylt skeptically.

“Because
I’ll tell them the alternatives,” Mykel said. “They’ll listen.”

“They’ll
listen to you now,” pointed out Rhystan. “But how will you make sure that they
keep listening?”

“That’s
simple enough. They don’t trust each other. We’ll have to collect a tariff in
order to make sure we get paid; so we’ll take charge of all the things the
alectors used to do and fund them out of the tariffs. They get to keep making
coins, and we keep order and protect them, and it won’t cost them much more
than before ... and a great deal less than having to raise and train their own
army.”

“They
won’t like that.”

“They’ll
like it a lot better than what else could happen,” suggested Mykel.

“So
we’ll be running things ...”

“I
think the majer will be running things,” said Culeyt, “and we’ll help him.
Unless you have a better idea. We’ll do a lot better than having to fight rebel
alectors and seltyrs in Dramur, or fighting off those sandwolves in Iron
Ste.
when half the people could have cared less.”

“We’ll
have to run road patrols to keep off the brigands, and probably take over
supervising the patrollers,” Mykel said. “If we do, we’ll be able to get more
recruits.”

“What
about the men?” asked Sendryrk. “What if they don’t want to stay?”

“For
now, if anyone asks, tell them that we have to find out whether there is a
Duarchy. The rules stay the same until we know. If everything does change,
they’ll be told the new rules, and they can make a choice then. Right now, what
we’re doing is getting them all closer to wherever their home might be, and
doing it a lot safer than on their own. That’s true for all of us.”