Alector's Choice (18 page)

The morning was
chill, not so bad as the time Dainyl had been in Blackstear and his breath had
been frozen fog—that had been during what the locals had called late spring—but
the day promised to be clear. In the early light, the peaks of the
MurianMountains stood out against the silver-green sky when Dainyl crossed the
courtyard, wearing his blue flying jacket as he made his way to the officers’ mess.

As always, the pair
of local Cadmian officers avoided even looking at him as he seated himself. The
steward brought him an ale immediately. He sipped it slowly, thinking about
what he had overheard and the patterns revealed by Majer Herryf’s latest reports.
Most important of all, while escape attempts had continued, the pattern of
those escapes had changed. Far fewer mals were diving off the bridge or trying
to climb the stockade. Despite the use of more Cadmians as guards, a greater
fraction of the escapees was vanishing without a trace. Both Sturwart and
Donasyr had tried to conceal that the escapes had risen significantly in the
past few months. Was that because they didn’t want more Myrmidons coming to
Dramur? Or because they didn’t want to lose control of the mine to the growers?
From his observations, it was also clear that neither the local Cadmians nor
the landowners had anything to do with the escapes.

The steward returned
with a platter and a basket of bread, slipping them onto the table silently.
Dainyl took another swallow of the ale before trying the heavily fried egg
toast.

Using Talent to boost
his hearing, he listened as he began to eat.

“… still wonder why
he’s here…

“… hear that they
sent the captain who found those rifles out to chase the escaped prisoners…
Jyoha’s the ass end of the east…”

“Their majer makes
what we got look good. The one officer that finds something, and they give him
shit duty…”

Dainyl mentally
marked that comment and kept listening, but neither Benjyr nor Meryst said anything
more of immediate interest to him. After he finished with his breakfast,
lacking, as usual, any sensibilities of finer taste, he left the mess and
stepped back out into the light but chill breeze that swept across the
courtyard.

As he looked to the
northwest, he sensed something, a use of Talent that wasn’t normal. He hurried
toward the squares where the pteridons were hosted, hoping either Quelyt or
Falyna was there.

Falyna stepped
forward as she saw the colonel approaching. “Sir? Something wrong?”

“I don’t know. Are
you ready to fly? With a passenger?”

“Yes, sir. We’re the
duty, such as it is—”

“Good. Let’s go. Head
for where we found that ancient tunnel.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dainyl didn’t feel
like explaining. How could he? He couldn’t afford to reveal that he was
following a Talent-trace, not when he’d been careful to hide that he had any
significant Talent besides shielding. While that had been true many years
before… it wasn’t now, and he didn’t want to lose the advantage of being
underestimated in that fashion, especially not after Tyanylt’s death and what
he had discovered so far in Dramur. Nothing known to more than two people, and
sometimes not even that, remained secret from the High Alector of Justice.

After Falyna mounted
the pteridon, Dainyl followed, settling himself into the silver saddle behind
her.

With a spring and a
burst of Talent, the pteridon spread its wings and leapt into the sky, headed
eastward into the prevailing wind. Within moments, taking advantage of the
thermals over the wanner water off the coast, Falyna and the pteridon were high
enough that Dramuria looked like a toy village below. Then the Myrmidon turned
the pteridon to the northwest and continued climbing as they headed toward the
peak of the ancients.

With the air so chill,
the pteridon could climb higher, but the cold seeped through the insulating
fabric of Dainyl’s uniform and even through the flying jacket.

Falyna looked back at
the colonel. “Straight to the peak, sir? You want me to set down there, like
before?”

“Circle it, first.
I’ll let you know. Keep your lance ready when we get near.”

“Yes, sir.”

Abruptly, the
pteridon dropped a good fifty yards, then began to climb again.

Dainyl looked down to
his left as they drew abreast of the mining complex, but he could feel no
Talent being used there, although he could make out a column of miners entering
the mining compound. How many more would vanish today? And how?

He forced his
attention to the terrain ahead.

As they drew nearer
to the angled peak, Dainyl could still sense, faintly but clearly, the use of
Talent, almost two lines of Talent, one red-violet and the other greenish gold,
although the two seemed interlinked.

“That peak there?”
called back Falyna.

“The one that angles,
just to the left.”

“Got it, sir. Don’t
see anything, not any more than last time.”

“Can you circle a bit
higher?”

“We can try.”

As the pteridon swept
past the cave, Dainyl caught a glimpse of the golden green arch—and of two
figures, one stocky and one far smaller. The stockier figure seemed to be of
red-violet, the slighter one of golden green.

“Don’t see anything
there, sir!” called out Falyna.

“Make another
circle!”

“Yes, sir.”

The red-violet
vanished from Dainyl’s Talent-perception. One instant, it was there; the next
it was not.

As Falyna brought the
pteridon around for another pass, Dainyl studied the foliage and the rocky
slope below the cave/tunnel and the bluff. He thought he could sense several
landers or indigens several hundred yards below.

“Skylance ready!” he
called.

“Lance ready!”
returned the Myrmidon ranker.

The pteridon swept
past the opening to the short tunnel again.

Dainyl could make
out, literally suspended in midair, a hazy sphere of golden green. In that
instant, as he watched, the sphere—at least he thought it was a sphere—vanished.
It didn’t move; it just wasn’t there.

“Nothing there, sir.”

There wasn’t, not any
longer, but Falyna hadn’t seen either presence, and that meant some sort of
strong Talent-shielding, although Dainyl hadn’t sensed it.

Crack!

As Dainyl was rocked
back in the pteridon’s second saddle, pain lanced through his right shoulder,
the one that had barely healed from the last set of braises. Dainyl raised
shields around his neck and head, all too aware of the drain his action would
place on the pteridon.

“Sir!”

“I’m fine. Use the
lance!” snapped the colonel. “Straight below the bluff.” The lifeforce-imbued
uniform and jacket had kept the bullet from breaking through his jacket and
tunic, but he would feel the impact for days.

“Coming round, sir.
Hang tight!”

The pteridon began to
lose altitude, if slowly.

“Can’t stay up here,
sir!”

“Go right over that
grove of trees ahead. Flame the center.”

Crack! Crack!

Dainyl could feel the
force of one of the bullets against his shields, and, the corresponding loss of
height by the pteridon.

A line of bluish
flame arrowed from Falyna’s skylance toward the stand of evergreens that clung
to the slope ahead and below. Yellow-and-blue fires flared, flame fountains
that almost reached up to the pteridon as it passed overhead, a good hundred
yards above where the trees had stood, amid the steeper rocky slopes and
cliffs.

With those fires,
Dainyl could sense the deaths of the men who had hidden in the trees.

“Another pass, sir?”

“No. None of them
could have escaped that.” At least, the fire had killed all that were nearby,
and it would have been far too wasteful of lifeforce to flame more of the
forest and the living things within it. “Just head back to the compound.”

“Yes, sir.”

Once they were well
away from the mountains and ridges, Dainyl released his shields. His entire
body was trembling from the effort it had taken to hold them that long, because
he had been forced to share the draw on the lifeforce around with the
pteridon—or they would have crashed into the mountains themselves.

As they headed back
down to a warmer altitude and toward the Cadmian compound just north of
Dramuria, questions swirled through his thoughts.

The golden green
lifeforce had to have been one of the ancients. It had matched the aura residue
in the short tunnel. Where had the ancient come from? How could it have
vanished so quickly? Why hadn’t he felt it before? What creature had created
the red-violet lifeforce? Was the tunnel site some place of worship for the
indigens or the landers? Where they worshipped or sacrificed themselves to the
ancients? Had they fired at him to protect the ancient? And why now? That last
question bothered him more than the others.

According to what
little he had been able to read on the previous inhabitants of Acorus, they had
retreated to the north and to the colder and higher places as the planet had
warmed as a result of the seedings. But they were supposed to have died off
centuries before. Dainyl certainly had seen no reports of them anywhere.

Was the cold the
reason why it had appeared when it did? Or had alectors simply not been around
when the ancients appeared because the ancients preferred extreme cold while
alectors shunned it?

Dainyl shifted his
weight in the saddle and harness, wincing as the straps pressured his injured
shoulder. As a mere observer, he’d taken more injuries in a few weeks than he
had in years as a Myrmidon ranker.

Falyna brought the
pteridon in smoothly, but Dainyl was, for once, more than glad to put his boots
on the stones of the compound courtyard. He just stood there for a moment.

“Hit you, didn’t
they, sir?” asked Falyna.

“It didn’t break
through, but I’ll have trouble with the shoulder for a while.”

“Were they the
rebels?”

“It doesn’t matter
now.” Dainyl looked to the northwest, where a pillar of smoke rose. As an
alector, he was supposed to be encouraging the growth of lifeforce, not
destroying it.

Another week had
passed, and, even in Dramur, the nights were chill, especially for troopers in
the sheds converted to rough barracks, and in the small house Mykel used as
well. They had not lost a mount to the pit traps for days, although they had
been fired upon from a distance on several occasions, but no one had been
wounded.

On Duadi morning, a
still day with low clouds that promised rain that had yet to arrive, Mykel
looked at the dispatch he had received from Majer Vaclyn, his eyes centering on
the section that he’d read over and over.

… Your task under the
Code is to bring these lawbreakers to justice. It matters not whether they are
breaking the law by refusing to pay their debts or by actual revolt. If they
will not surrender to lawful authority, you are to use whatever force is
necessary under the regulations governing the Cadmian Peacekeeping Authority…
Once the lawbreakers are brought to justice, you are to report the results to
higher authority as expeditiously as possible.

Whatever force was
necessary. Mykel didn’t like the orders, and he’d hoped that his report to the
majer would have suggested that his mission was unwise. The majer clearly
didn’t see it that way, and Mykel had one of two choices. He could refuse and
be flogged for failure to obey orders, then imprisoned for the remainder of his
term at hard labor, probably in the very mine that seemed to be part of the
problem. Or he could carry out his orders, but, hopefully, in some way that did
not make the situation worse.

He wasn’t sure how to
carry out the orders without making things even worse, and he didn’t feel like
ruining his life. He snorted. How many officers ended up doing what he was
going to do, knowing that the orders were idiotic, but not wanting to be
punished for saying so?

He folded the
dispatch and slipped it into the pouch that he put in the chestnut’s
saddlebags. Then he turned to Bho-ral, who had been waiting quietly in the long
morning shadow of the sagging barn.

“Majer didn’t read
your report, did he, sir?”

“He read it. He
disagrees. Breaking the Code is breaking the Code. Those who break it must be
punished, even if they didn’t have a choice. People don’t choose to have crops
fail. They don’t choose where their parents settled, and not everyone has
brains to escape their fate.”

“Those that don’t,
they get punished for their lack of brains,” Bhoral replied. “We all get
punished one way or another. That’s life. You do the best you can.”

Mykel laughed,
harshly. “I’m going to talk to the chandler. Have the scouts meet me in half a
glass. You know where.” He mounted the chestnut and rode westward, past the
bedraggled sunbean fields. Some of the villagers actually looked at him as he
rode past, although none addressed him.

He reined up outside
the chandlery and dismounted, tying the chestnut to the rail. He’d continued to
stop every day to buy something, although often it was only for a copper or
two. Captains didn’t have that many free coins.

The chandler watched
as Mykel hurriedly crossed the front porch, but said nothing as the captain
stepped inside and studied the tables and shelves, many of which had far fewer
provisions than on the previous day.

Mykel walked to a
shelf on the side wall. There in an open, carved box, which looked as though
Harnyck had been dusting or polishing it, was a miniature knife in a sheath. He
slowly picked it up, noting that it was not even as long as his palm was wide.
The leather of the sheath was old, blackened, and cracked. The knife was all
one piece, with evenly rough-patterned black stone, almost like onyx, inlaid on
each side of the hilt, forming a grip. The metal was silvery, with a hint of
copper or bronze. Unlike most knives, it was double-bladed, and the blade was
narrow. It looked exceedingly sharp.

“What’s this?”

“A knife, looks like
to me.” Harnyck’s voice was even.

“Is it for sale?”
Mykel eased the knife back into the sheath, which, old as it looked, was
doubtless far less ancient than the blade.

“I wouldn’t sell that
to my worst enemy.”

“Then you ought to be
able to sell it to me.” Mykel knew , he had to have the knife, but not why.
That was a frightening feeling, because he’d never had to have anything.

“Bad luck to sell it.
Worse luck to keep it,” Harnyck said slowly.

“Do you know someone
poor, who needs coins?” asked Mykel.

“These days, who
doesn’t?”

Mykel extended five
silvers he couldn’t really afford. “You give these to them, and the knife to
me.”

Harnyck looked at
Mykel. “I can’t refuse that, Captain, but you’ll be wishing I had.”

“I won’t back out.”
Mykel laid the coins on the shelf. “Tell me why.”

“A bargain’s a
bargain.” Harnyck smiled and picked up the coins. He handed the knife to Mykel.
“I give you this, of my own free will, and you have offered to take it of
yours.”

“I have,” Mykel
agreed.

“It’s a knife of the
ancients. You knew that when you saw it. For that artistry, it’s worth a score
of golds. You know that, too, I’d wager.”

“I know it’s
valuable. That’s not why I wanted it.”

For the first time,
Harnyck smiled. “I could tell that, too. My father told me only to give it to a
good-hearted enemy in a time of great trials. He also said that it would either
destroy or make the man who received it.”

“I’m glad you think
so highly of me.” Mykel’s humor was forced, and he realized that he’d probably
said the same exact words to the chandler before.

“You will do terrible
deeds, Captain. All who have held that knife have.” Harnyck smiled again.
“Leastwise, that was what my da told me.”

Mykel wasn’t cheered
by the chandler’s smile. Slowly, he slipped the knife inside his tunic. “I
already have. I probably will again. Most Cadmians do.”

“At least, you know
it.” Harnyck stepped back. “The silvers will help some bairns… and not mine.
I’d not stoop to that.” He paused. “Good day, Captain.”

“Good day, Harnyck.”

Mykel’s mouth was dry
as he left the chandlery. What in the world had he done? Five silvers? Why?
What did the knife mean?

He untied the
chestnut slowly, then mounted, turning the horse back eastward to meet with the
men he had assigned to watch the comings and goings around Jyoha. Again, on the
way from the town, some looked at him. None said a word, and none smiled.