Soarers Choice (65 page)

The
near-distant humming of the ancients’ Talent concentration or device felt
higher-pitched, but Dainyl wasn’t certain whether the frequency had shifted or
his perceptions had changed. Either way, there was little enough he could do
about it at the moment.

The
transport/translation was swift, but as he neared the node and locator above
it, Dainyl tried to focus on breaking out well away from the Table, visualizing
and extending himself ...

...
to find himself in the corridor outside the Alustre Table chamber, where he
quickly used his Talent to conceal his presence. He needed to do better in the
future — if he could.

One
of the alector guards stationed outside the doors to the Table chamber — less
than ten yards away — turned. “There’s Talent there.” He raised his voice.
“Whoever it is, I’ll fire.”

Dainyl
dropped the sight concealment.

“It’s
him!”

Both
attempted to fire lightcutters.

Dainyl
brushed away the energy beams, then turned them back on the guards. Both fell.

He
just looked for a moment at the fallen pair. He’d never been able to do that
before. He’d seen the ancients do it, but he’d never seen an alector do it. He
hadn’t thought about killing them, not precisely, but turning their energy
back. Was he becoming as callous as he felt Brekylt was? He pushed away the
thought. He needed to find Brekylt, especially if the Alector of the East had
put out word that Dainyl was to be killed on sight.

He
walked quickly to the stairs and then up to the next level, using sight
concealment as he neared the section of the building frequented mainly by
landers — and alectors of lesser Talent.

Two
landers walked out of the second doorway. Neither looked back.

“Something’s
going on,” said one.

“No
one’s talking. Not the alectors, anyway.”

“Haven’t
seen many today ...”

The
two turned down a side corridor, but Dainyl kept moving, trying to remain near
the center where someone was less likely to step out of a doorway and run into
him, since he should be invisible to all but those with Talent.

He
knew from past experience that there was a direct set of stairs to the
alectors’ level, and that it was in the middle of the building. After searching
that part of the buildjng, Dainyl used his Talent-senses to locate the back
staircase to the uppermost level, and to release the Talent lock on the lower
door. Shields firm, he opened the door and stepped through into a small foyer.

The
single alector guard in black and silver whirled, lifting his lightcutter.

Dainyl
dropped the sight concealment. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

“Highest...”
The guard’s eyes flicked from Dainyl to the door through which he had entered.

“I’m
looking for the Alector of the East.”

“His
study is on the next level.”

“I
know.”

“You
can’t go up there ... sir.”

“I
wasn’t aware that a mere senior alector could prohibit a High Alector from
doing anything.” Dainyl stepped forward.

“Stop,
sir.” The guard’s finger tightened on the firing stud.

Dainyl
reached out with his Talent, shunted the energy aside. The guard paled, then
stepped back. Dainyl walked past him, reaching out and taking the lightcutter
and slipping it inside his jacket before he started up the narrow staircase. At
the top was another door, but without a guard.

After
walking ten yards to his right in the direction of Brekylt’s formal study, his
boots clicking on the silver and black marble of the corridor floor, it became
clear that there were no alectors anywhere nearby. In fact, as he discovered by
Talent and looking into study after study, no one at all was there.

Dainyl
hurried back along the corridor and down the stairs, noting that the guard had
also vanished, and made his way under sight concealment back toward the Table
chamber.

All
that remained of the two alector guards were their black and silver uniforms
and their boots. That no one had checked on the guards suggested strongly that
Brekylt and those closest to him had left Alustre. Even so, as he opened the
door into the Table chamber, he strengthened his shields. The chamber itself
was empty, but Dainyl could sense Talent concealed within the hidden recorder’s
chambers.

He
moved toward the section of the stone wall that was the hidden door, extending
a Talent probe to release the lock. The door slid open, revealing a younger
alector in the green of a Recorder of Deeds. His face was stern, and his violet
eyes hard.

“Recorder
Retyl?” asked Dainyl politely.

“You’re
not the Highest! You’re an abomination!” Retyl fired a blast of Talent.

Dainyl
deflected it and stepped forward, using his shields to block the recorder’s
access to the Table. “Where is Brekylt?”

Retyl
backed away.

Dainyl
forced his shields around those of the recorder. “Where did he go?”

“I’ll
never tell you, abomination.”

Dainyl
contracted his shields more.

The
recorder swallowed, then lashed out with all his Talent, dropping his own
shields.

Dainyl
was a fraction of an instant too late, and the recorder’s Talent force
rebounded from Dainyl’s shields and slammed back into the recorder, who smiled
in the instant before his form shattered to dust under the impact of his own
powers.

Retyl’s
reply, and his actions, suggested strongly that Retyl had known where Brekylt
was or had gone. That meant Brekylt had used the Table to go somewhere. The
most likely destinations were either Dulka, where he had been building a force,
or Ludar. Until Dainyl knew more — and could prove it — he didn’t want to travel
into Ludar, and that left Dulka.

Dainyl
turned, as if to climb onto the Table, before shaking his head. He didn’t need
the Table to access the deeper web. He concentrated on it, finding himself
dropping ...

...
simultaneously through and past the purpled translation tube down to the deeper
blackish green web. Above him, he could sense from outside the contractions of
the translation tube, those seemed stronger and more frequent.

Just
how long would it be before the Archon transferred the Master Scepter?

Dainyl
caught himself. He could still end up trapped in the ancients’ web if he didn’t
concentrate on the task at hand. He searched for the maroon and blue locator of
Dulka, and then the green node corresponding to it.

He
flashed toward it, coming to a halt, hovering above it and below the
translation tube and the locator. Carefully, trying to keep a link to the ley
line, he focused on moving upward through the stone and angling in the
direction that led to the RA’s study.

Then,
suddenly he could see clearly, if still linked below, and found himself in one
of the redstone corridors. He nudged his way along toward the steps leading up
to the RA’s complex. Ahead at the archway at the base of the stone stairs were
two alector guards in black and silver shimmersilk.

Both
raised their lightcutters.

Dainyl
strengthened his shields and...

...
found himself standing on the redstone paving of the corridor, as though
reinforcing his shields had cut the link to the ley node below.

“It’s
the Highest of Justice! Pass the word! Heavier weapons!”

The
blue energy from their lightcutters flared around his shields. A second blast
flared around him from behind.

Dainyl
had hoped to link to the ley node, but how could he when holding stronger
shields cut him off?

The
guards fired again. This time, Dainyl diverted the energy back at them,
boosting it with his own Talent. Both went down, sprawling on the redstone
floor.

Dainyl
turned in time to see his attackers from the rear dart into a side corridor.

Then
two more guards spilled from the RA’s staircase, and one carried a riflelike
device. He immediately leveled it at Dainyl and fired. A bolt of blue-green
flame slammed against Dainyl’s shields with enough force to reverberate through
him.

Dainyl
swung to face the new attackers, marshaling Talent force, concentrating on the
light-rifle, and struggling to divert those energy bolts back at the guard who
was firing it. Even as he moved forward, the second and third bolts began to
fray at his shields.

Trying
to hold the shields, he Talent-reached for the ley node and the green Talent
force that it held. Then, he could feel a well of Talent, and he focused it
into a narrow line, directly at the light-rifle.

The
corridor exploded into light, so bright that Dainyl could see nothing. His eyes
burned, then watered. Flashing points of light filled his field of vision. He
blotted his eyes with the back of his hand, but that didn’t help much. The air
around him was stifling, and there was ah odor of ash and molten metal.

After
several moments, he still could not see, but his Talent-sense gave him a feel
of the corridor. He was the only one in it. He took one careful step forward,
and then another. By the time he neared the archway to the staircase, his eyes
were providing a blurry picture. One side of the stone archway had been melted
to the point that thin rivulets of stone had run down the wall and then cooled
and hardened.

Dainyl
did not see or sense anyone on the stone stairs or on the landing at the top of
the stairs. He started up, warily, but no one approached. The landing was
empty, as was the corridor beyond.

His
eyesight had begun to improve, and he could also sense a greater concentration
of Talent farther beyond, in the direction of the RA’s study. He stood for
several moments, then moved down the corridor, unholstering both lightcutters
and holding them ready. As easy as he tried to make his steps, he still felt
his boots sounded like thunder on the redstone tiled floor.

An
alector guard peered out of a doorway ten yards ahead. Dainyl fired, and the
alector dropped. The concentration of Talent ahead remained constant, and
Dainyl sent out a Talent probe. “It’s an ancient!”

Smiling
mirthlessly at the exclamation that showed how little the speaker knew about
the ancients, Dainyl continued his approach to the RA’s study. He could detect
two sources of Talent within the outer foyer to the RA’s study. One was that of
an alector, somehow partly shielded, and the other source was a lightcannon —
but one without storage crystals. Dainyl stopped. He really would have
preferred to sprint away from the lightcannon — really more like a roadcutter —
that would suck lifeforce from the entire area. The shielded alector had to be
an alector, possibly even an engineer — in one of the insulated suits.

Dainyl
stopped dead, carefully extending a Talent probe to the lightcannon. It would
be hard for the alector in the suit to detect because Talent and lifeforce
insulation worked both ways.

The
energy already stored for discharge was massive.

Dainyl
eased back a step, then another. There was no sense in trying to face something
that obliterated rock walls scores of yards high and deep.

“There
he is!”

With
the words, a bolt of greenish blue slammed into his shields from behind.

He
concentrated, trying to hold his shields and at the same time attempting to use
Talent to discharge energy from the lightcannon in a fashion that would destroy
it while inflicting damage on everyone and anything but himself. The energy
patterns had more than a few locks within the mechanism, and he was trying to
manipulate them from more than ten yards away, strictly applying Talent.

Another
light-rifle bolt battered him, and the alector controlling the overpowered
lightcannon began to wheel it forward to where it could fire at Dainyl.

Dainyl
realized he wasn’t going to have time to manipulate the lightcannon’s controls.
He slammed a Talent blast into the control crystal, then dropped to the floor
and contracted his shields, hoping he could protect himself — remembering to
close his eyes.

The
entire stone structure shuddered. Light flared through his closed eyelids, and
his body skidded across the redstone tiles back toward the stairs. Stones and
other heavy objects slammed into his shields, and kept striking.

For
a moment, Dainyl lay stunned on the hard redstone tiles. Then he rolled over
and staggered to his feet. The north end of the upper level of the RA’s
building was gone, as was the entire roof. The south end was heaped with
rubble.

Dainyl
could sense, through shields that were but a fraction of what they had been
moments before, that a small circular area around where the lightcannon had
been was lifeforce-dead. After a moment, he turned and made his way, half
climbing over stone and wood rubble, toward the staircase that would get him
lower and closer to the ley node below.

Twice,
on the way down the stairs, he nearly lost his balance on the stone chunks that
half filled the staircase and nearly tumbled down. Beyond the bottom landing,
the corridor leading back to the Table area was clear of rubble, but the walls
were riddled with cracks, wide enough in several places to admit lines of
sunlight.

Then
he heard voices ahead.

“He’s
still alive, just ahead ...”

“Should
have killed him ...”

“Where’s
the other lightcannon? Get it here!” The voice was unfamiliar, certainly not
Brekylt’s. Might it be Quivaryt? “Hurry! We’ve almost got him.”

“We
can’t let him escape.”

Why
was there such urgency about that? Dainyl set that question aside and
Talent-groped for the ley node below him. He hoped he could link because what
shields he did have left wouldn’t stand against a lightcannon — or even one of
the light-rifles.

His
Talent felt weak, limited.

What
about letting the green attract the green?