Alector's Choice (33 page)

Dainyl winced
visibly, even though the number was really no surprise to him after his
inspection flight over the west of Dramur. “That many?”

Shastylt shook his
head. “It could be more. There’s been no response from Alustre.”

No response? When the
contraband weapons had been reported weeks before, when the high alectors had
access to Tables and Myrmidon couriers?

“You look surprised,
Submarshal.”

“I’m less surprised
by the numbers of weapons missing than I am by the lack of response and
knowledge.” Dainyl was walking on the edge of a steep chasm. To charge a high
alector with incompetence or worse was unwise, but not to show some concern and
even indignation would raise the marshal’s suspicions.

“Some of the high
alectors do not grasp the severity of the challenges we face in the next few
years, and we must tread lightly until they or their successors understand
fully those challenges.”

Dainyl nodded. “It is
clear that you are dealing with a most delicate situation, sir.”

“As are you, Dainyl.”
Shastylt smiled. “I would that I could have you delegate you oversight of the
Dramur situation to someone else, but, at the moment, there is no one else.
Majer Dhenyr will have his hands full taking over your duties, especially now,
and it would not be feasible to bring either of the senior majers from Alustre.
The Myrmidons have always had to cope with fewer officers than we might wish
otherwise.” The marshal rose from behind the desk. “We will have to continue
this discussion later. This afternoon, the Highest and I will be briefing the
High Alector of Finance and the Duarch, but I did want to let you know of your
promotion. It is effectively immediately. So you can put on the stars as soon
as you have a moment. The Highest will be briefing you tomorrow; and then on
Septi, we’ll talk again.”

As the marshal had
stood, so had Dainyl. He did reach out and take the black-enameled box that
held the eight-pointed silver stars of a Submarshal. The marshal’s stars were
gold and green-edged, of course. “I look forward to that, sir.”

He managed a pleased
smile before turning and leaving the marshal’s study.

Once back in his own
study, a space that he supposed he would be leaving before long for the larger
study that had been Tyanylt’s, Dainyl sat down behind his desk, heavily. He was
both surprised and alarmed by his promotion. Shastylt had as much as stated
that some of the high alec-tors did not understand the coming crisis and would
have to be replaced, and that the marshal and the Highest would be briefing the
Duarch on something of great import. Dainyl was supposed to connect the two—but
he doubted that such a connection was accurate.

More than anything,
he felt that his position was more precarious, rather than less—and he had yet
to meet with the High Alector of Justice.

Dainyl walked up to
the duty coach outside Myrmidon headquarters roughly a glass and a half before
noon on Sexdi. The sky had cleared the night before, leaving the heavens a
brilliant silver-green. The white sun shone brightly, but the air remained
chill.

“The Hall of Justice,
sir?” asked the duty driver.

“That’s right.”
Dainyl offered a smile and then stepped into the coach.

As the coach pulled
away from the headquarters building, Dainyl sat back, thinking about what
awaited him. The night before, he and Lystrana had discussed, quietly and in
their bedchamber, what the marshal had told him. She had not been able to add
any more understanding or information. What was obvious, so obvious that
neither had to speak it, was that times were getting even more dangerous,
especially since Dainyl was thought to have limited Talent and no ties to the
Duarches, and no links to any of the High Alectors—except indirectly through
Lystrana.

Dainyl glanced out
the coach window, his eyes taking in the Duarch’s palace to the right, the
stone glowing in the sunlight, and then the gardens, gray and winter brown. Did
the Duarch of Elcien know what the Highest and the marshal were doing? Dainyl
and Lystrana doubted it, yet neither dared bring matters before the Duarch
without some real proof—and they had none—not given the Talent-strength of the
marshal and the High Alector of Justice.

In less than a
quarter glass, the coach pulled up outside of the Hall of Justice.

“I’ll be waiting over
at the concourse, sir,” said the driver.

“I don’t imagine I’ll
be that long.” With a nod, Dainyl turned and started up the steps.

Coming down the wide
golden marble steps were two lander women, followed by a graying man and woman.
The thinner of the two younger women was punctuating her words with sobs and
tears.

“… he didn’t do
anything wrong, he didn’t. What difference did it make, adding a pinch of white
lead to the wine here and there?… kept it from spoiling and tasted sweeter… the
Highest wouldn’t change anything… what will we do? Gil’s dead, and they took
the shop…”

Dainyl concealed a
wince as he passed the four. Not only did lead poison those who had too much,
but it also decreased fertility among the indigens and landers, and that meant
slower growth of high-level lifemass.

No matter how often
the schools taught that certain practices were not good for life, some landers
and indigens would do them anyway if it brought a few extra silvers, or even
coppers. And then they complained when justice fell on them, even when they had
been warned.

At the top of the
outside steps, without looking back, he stepped between two of the goldenstone
pillars and into the receiving rotunda, crossing the octagonal tiles of
polished gold and green marble, with their inset eight-pointed stars, stars
exactly the same shape as those he now wore on his tunic collar. He could hear
the petitioners in the main Hall, even before he passed through the goldenstone
pillars between the receiving rotunda and the Hall.

The High Alector of
Justice was not seated behind the podium of judgment, set directly before the
Needle of the Duarches that soared upward through the high pink marble ceiling
and well above the green exterior tiles of the roof. Rather, one of his
assistants was, although Dainyl doubted that most of the petitioners would have
noted the difference.

Dainyl slipped to the
left toward the pillar on the south side that held the hidden entrance to the
chambers below. While the entrance was on the side away from the podium and petitioners,
as always, Dainyl used his Talent to conceal his opening the concealed entry.

After stepping
through the square stone archway, and making sure it closed behind him, he
released the Talent-illusion and made his way down the light-torch-illuminated
stairway to the lower level and warmer air. He followed the stone-walled
hallway to the Highest’s chambers.

Even before he
reached the door, a deep voice boomed out, “Please come in, Submarshal.”

This time the Highest
wore a tunic of deep purple, trimmed in brilliant green. The purple created a
greater impression of gravity. Did the High Alector wear the purple when
meeting with either of the Duarches?

Dainyl inclined his
head, murmuring the ritual phrase, “Highest, I am here to serve.”

“That you are.” The
High Alector of Justice motioned for Dainyl to follow him. Without saying more,
the senior alec-I tor turned and walked through an open archway. I Dainyl
followed and found himself in a smaller sitting room, also windowless, but lit
by enough crystal light-torches that the chamber was more than comfortable.

The Highest seated
himself in a curved oak chair without upholstery. Dainyl took the matching
chair on the other side of the small ebony table. Despite the hardness of the
wood, the chair’s graceful curves were far more comfortable than many padded
chairs in which Dainyl had found himself. He waited for the Highest to speak.

Several moments
passed, and Dainyl could sense the use of Talent to scan him. As he had
practiced with Lystrana, he did not react, but merely maintained his shields.

“Your shields improve
every year, Dainyl.”

“I keep practicing,
Highest.”

“ ‘Sir’ will do,
Dainyl.” A half-humorous smile followed the words, then a pause, before the
High Alector continued. “I must admit that the timing of events, even of your
promotion, is less than optimal.”

“I certainly didn’t
plan things that way, Highest,” Dainyl said politely.

“I doubt anyone could
have been that farsighted, even your lovely wife.”

“She is quite
farsighted, but neither she nor I anticipated a promotion at this time.”
Earlier, or not at all, had been Dainyl’s own judgment.

“As Marshal Shastylt
doubtless revealed, matters on Acorus are not as we would wish.”

“He did suggest that,
sir.”

“Knowing him, he was
circumspect. They may be worse than that. None of these difficulties would be
especially troublesome by itself. The problems with the iron and coal mines in
Iron Stem would be workable. A wild lander Talent in the rugged hills west of
Hyalt would require no more than a battalion of Cadmians and a squad of
Myrmidons. Grassland nomads have decided to raid merchant convoys on the upper
steppe highway between Ongelya, and they hide in the high grasses so that
pteri-dons are of little use—unless we were to burn the grass, and that just
would make the lifemass situation less favorable. So another battalion must go
there. There is your problem of what appear to be dual revolts in Dramur. There
are unforeseen difficulties in Dereka—but I will not burden you with all of
those. The marshal is dealing with Iron Stem and Hyalt, and, once you finish
what you must here and in Lyterna, you will handle the difficulties in Dramur.”

In Lyterna? What was
he supposed to do in Lyterna? Dainyl decided against asking, for the moment. He
was also concerned, because the Highest had not been quite truthful about the
difficulties, but exactly how, Dainyl could not have said, only that the
Talent-sense surrounding those words of the Highest had left him feeling most
uneasy.

“Before we deal with
Lyterna,” the Highest went on, “there are some basic matters of knowledge that
are not widely known. I will go through these quickly. Some you may have
deduced, but I would be surprised if you know them all.” He paused.

Dainyl nodded,
waiting.

“For all practical
purposes, the pteridons are nearly indestructible, as you may know. What you
may not know is that their numbers are fixed. Once the Dual Scepters have been
placed on a world, pteridons as you know them can no longer be created…”

Dual Scepters? What
Dual Scepters? Should he ask? Would Lystrana know?

“… Upon occasion,
wild translations may manifest themselves as feral and near-brainless pteridons
or as other wild Talent-creatures, but they are short-lived and unusable. In
the history of all Ifrit worlds, only a handful of pteridons have been
destroyed, that is, until the lifeforce of the world on which they have been
created itself fails. This does not wean that a pteridon cannot be destroyed,
only that no one in recent eras has done so. It is possible. I will not tell
you how. It is sufficient for you to know that such destruction is both
possible and unlikely…”

Dainyl had not known
what the Highest had just told him, but after his years as a Myrmidon, he could
not have said that he was surprised.

“Second is the matter
of Talented landers. As you should know, no lander who has displayed the
ability to employ Talent can be allowed to live. What you likely do not know is
that landers were designed and bred as more, shall we say, creative versions of
indigens when it became apparent that the indigens were not multiplying world
lifeforce mass quickly enough. What the designers did not realize until far
later was that the creativity traits also allow the possibility of Talent, and
that certain landers have demonstrated the potential to be highly Talented.
Thus, they must be destroyed, and quickly, once discovered. This policy is
never to be revealed or discussed with anyone besides a high alec-tor, or the
marshal. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That is a matter of
survival. Landers breed more rapidly and in far greater numbers, and they would
exhaust the world’s lifeforce all too quickly.”

“What about
crossbreeds between landers and indigens?”

“The offspring could
carry those traits,” the Highest replied. “We do not wish those traits to be
spread. Talent may never surface in someone with the traits, and thus cannot be
detected, Its emergence in landers cannot be predicted—except in those cases
where both parents are Talented landers—and such an instance must never be
allowed to occur.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Another related fact
is that the so-called ancients are not all dead.”

“Sir?” Dainyl hoped
he counterfeited enough surprise.

“They are a dying
race, among the last remnants of the life-forms fully native to Acorus. They
are seldom encoun-tered or seen, but they have a form of Talent, and they can
be dangerous, according to the reports in the sealed archives. I have never
seen one, but most of my predecessors have…”

Dainyl had the sense
and feeling that the highest was skirting the truth about the ancients, if not
outright dissembling.

“They prefer high and
chill locations, and we believe that a small community lives somewhere on the
Aerial Plateau.”

“That’s too high for
pteridons.” It would be uncomfortable, reflected Dainyl, if not close to impossible,
for an alector to function well or for long in that cold and altitude.

“Exactly. Should the
ancients become a problem, we do have a contingency plan for dealing with them.
It would be extraordinarily wasteful of world lifeforce, but such a plan has
been developed. If you encounter such an ancient, it is to be reported
immediately.”

“Sir… I don’t know if
Marshal Shastylt told you, but I have found a tunnel with an ancient archway on
one of the peaks in Dramur. There were no tracks there…”

“The marshal did
report that.” The High Alector smiled. “Their artifacts, like our eternastone
and other preserved works, do not age. I have seen two of those tunnels with
the amberstone arches myself, one in Deforya and one in the Spine of Coras near
Passera.” He cleared his throat “The ancients can be most dangerous. Several
alectors were killed in the early years after the seedings.”

“Do we know how they
are dangerous?”

“According to the
records, they are accompanied by creatures that can suck the lifeforce from any
living thing. They are supposed to be able to draw lifeforce themselves, but
this has never been observed. Artifacts found in several places suggest that
they are quite skilled. As a matter °f fact, our light-torches are based on one
of then-designs…”

That was something
else that Dainyl had not known.

“Now… there are other
matters you will need instruction in, including the use of the Tables. For
these, you will be flying to Lyterna on Octdi…”

“This Octdi?” Dainyl
asked.

“I did say the timing
was most inconvenient.” The High Alector’s voice contained a trace of
irritation.

“I apologize,
Highest. I was just thinking about the situation in Dramur.”

“That seems to have
stabilized for the moment, and what you learn in Lyterna may also prove helpful
when you return to Dramur.”

“Could you tell me
what else I might be learning in Lyterna.”

The High Alector
laughed, warmly and humorously. “If I could explain all that, you wouldn’t need
to go. I won’t say more because I want you to learn from the senior alectors who
have studied Acorus far longer than anyone else. You’ll find it both
interesting and intriguing. That, I can assure you.”

After years of
experience in the Myrmidons, Dainyl had come to distrust anything a superior
described as interesting. That usually meant dangerous, difficult—or both.

The Highest rose.
“Congratulations, and my best wishes go with you.”

Dainyl stood and
bowed slightly in response. “Thank you.” What puzzled him more than slightly
was that the Highest had sincerely meant his best wishes, unlike some of the
other statements he had made, which had been tinged with the feeling of
incompleteness, or outright dissembling. The combination suggested Dainyl was
being set up to be used as a tool—again.

As he left the
chambers of the High Alector of Justice, he just wished he had a better idea of
what sort of tool he was and for what purpose he was being shaped and honed.