Scion of Cyador

XVII

Daelya has left a small stew in a pot, and a loaf of fresh bread, for Lorn’s evening meal. Sitting in the breakfast room off the kitchen of his quarters, Lorn begins to eat both, wishing he had even Byrdyn to sip with it, but from what he can tell, there is no spirit factor at all in Biehl, unless the chandler or some other factor also trades in wine or spirits. Then, he has not had time to look, and wine is the least of his problems.

He is not sure whether his posting to Biehl is a test, or another attempt to remove his presence from the lancers-a presence apparently unwanted by some-or both, with different players trying to use him for differing purposes. His thoughts skitter to the questions his father had posed, particularly the first, for which he yet has no truly satisfactory answer: What is it that allows Cyad to exist? Other cities exist without chaos-towers, he knows, and without Magi’i. Other cities exist without emperors or harbors or without the riches that Cyad possesses. He snorts. Biehl exists, wretchedly, without any of those. All cities have people and structures, or they would not be cities, but those are answers far too simplistic, especially for his father.

The second question-“Could all the might of the Mirror Lancers here in Cyad, or all the might of the Iron Legions in Hamor, prevail against the will of those who live in such lands?”-suggests an equally simplistic answer. That answer is obviously no, and the answer is so obvious Lorn wonders why his father asked such a question. “Are those who direct power or chaos the source of either?” The answer to the third question is yet an equally obvious negative.

Yet Kien’elth is far from a stupid or obvious father and magus. So why has he posed such questions to Lorn? What does he wish Lorn to see beyond the questions? And the last unwritten question is so general the answer could be anything. How can the world be simpler and yet more complex than possibly imagined? The complexity is easy enough to see-in people like Maran and Flutak and even his father. The simplicity is something he has his doubts about.

Lorn still has no answers with which he is comfortable when he finishes eating. He washes out both pot and platter in the bucket of soapy water Daelya has left, then rinses them with the clean water in the pitcher and sets them in the rack on the table to dry. He walks slowly from the breakfast room where he has eaten alone, back to the study, where he looks down at the glass, concentrating once more.

Once the silvery mists clear, Lorn can see that the assassin now meets with two other men in a dim room. Lorn watches but for a moment, not wishing to spend energy on the glass when it will tell him little for the moment. As the image fades, he picks up the crude map he has drawn out, of the road and the best way to reach Flutak’s villa. He hopes that Flutak remains alone, for the overcaptain knows he cannot afford to lurk and wait, or to dally.

Lorn also hopes that Flutak’s assassins arrive relatively early in the night so that he can complete his own tasks before daybreak. He has few doubts that Flutak will act quickly, before Lorn can discover how much of the payroll is being diverted-and tell anyone else.

Lorn shakes his head as he considers what faces him. If he does not act against Flutak and the assassins quickly, then he will spend all too much time merely avoiding getting killed, and likely fail in his assigned duties, which will require all his efforts, so deplorable is the state of the post at Biehl. Yet if anyone can prove Lorn has acted to stop his own assassination, he will be considered inept if he fails and ruthless if he succeeds-and coldblooded, either way.

His laugh is bitter. Why is it that people feel that revenge is justified, and acceptable, and that one is hot-blooded and human to undertake it, yet that to quietly prevent it is cold-blooded and ruthless-even if, in the end, far fewer souls suffer? Just from studying the payroll records, from looking at Flutak’s villa, and from seeing the man immediately hiring an assassin, Lorn can tell the depth of corruption. But most would want greater proof. Greater proof will likely be Lorn’s death, and he is unwilling to allow that. So he must act.

While he is uneasy about the decision, he cannot see any other option that will allow both his survival and his success at Biehl.

So…while he waits for the assassins he knows will come, he sits down in the twilight to consider again his sire’s first question-the essence of what allows Cyad to exist. All cities exist because the people wish to live there, and can do so better than elsewhere. Why? Or how? Trade? But trade requires that people produce more of a good than they require, and they must have enough food and shelter to survive.

Finally, he nods, and dims the lamp in the study, then walks to his bedchamber, where he dims and then shuts off that light. Like most Magi’i, his night senses are excellent. Except for detail work such as writing or reading, he needs no illumination.

In the darkness, he studies again the firelance he has removed from the armory earlier in the afternoon, more fully charged now than then, and sets it against the molding of the double doors to the bedchamber.

Then he returns to the study, where he concentrates on the image of the man he had seen in the afternoon, and followed in the glass through the early evening. Three shadowy figures ride down a narrow lane, past what Lorn believes to be the clayworks to the south of the compound.

Lorn watches in the glass, then lets the image fade, nodding. He steps back to the breakfast room and eases the window open partway, enough to hear any sounds in the courtyard, should there be any. Then he waits, sitting in the chair where he had eaten.

When he believes yet enough time has passed, he slips back to the study and checks the glass again. The last of three figures is sliding down a rope from a brick wall-the compound wall. Lorn returns to the breakfast room, bringing the firelance with him, and sets it in the corner by the archway between kitchen and breakfast room. He unfastens the sabre scabbard and lays it on the table, after drawing the Brystan blade. Then he stands in the darkness that is like early twilight to him, waiting.

How long he waits, he is not certain, but he can sense the three men padding up the back service steps to his quarters, and the slight click of a brass key in a lock is confirmation enough for Lorn.

The three ease into the kitchen, and, without a word, two slip through the side archway into the main room and across it to the closed double doors of the large bedchamber. A shorter figure remains in the kitchen by the door.

In the darkness, Lorn slides into the kitchen. The sentry peers forward, clearly expecting the return of his compatriots. Lorn moves, bringing the chaos-enhanced Brystan sabre across the other’s throat, and knocking the heavy truncheon aside.

The gurgle is barely noticeable, but the dull thud of the man’s body falling and the clunk of his weapon seem to echo through the kitchen.

Lorn ignores the sounds and retrieves the firelance in three steps, moving to the door between breakfast room and the main chamber.

“He’s not there!” hisses a voice.

“The study!”

Lorn raises the firelance, using his chaos-senses to focus the firebeam tightly. Hssst! Hsst!

“Aeei!” One brief scream is the only sound that may leave Lorn’s quarters.

He takes a deep breath, and moves to the two bodies, each sprawled with most of its skull burned away. Lorn swallows back the bile that has risen into his throat, standing there for a brief moment. Although the three had come to kill him, he dislikes becoming an assassin himself, save that he has little choice. He could not have captured them, and even had he, they would have said little, and he would have looked foolish trying to charge Flutak with hiring assassins. Then, he would have to kill the next set of assassins, if he could, and avoid other dangers-from possible poisoning to anything else Flutak could devise-each time with fewer advantages than the time before.

He finally bends down and searches the figures, but none bears anything that might prove useful, except for the gold and silver coins in their wallets, two daggers, a truncheon, and a short straight sword with a double edge. Lorn repeats the process with the dead sentry in the kitchen.

Then he drags all three figures out to the front, tiled foyer. There he lifts the firelance again, playing the chaos carefully across the bodies, trying not to burn the paneled walls or the woodwork. In a short time, nothing remains, except for a few metal items.

The worn broom from the kitchen is sufficient to sweep the ashes out onto the landing outside the door, and a rag removes most of the blackness from the tiles. It is also sufficient to wipe away the blood in the kitchen.

Lorn slips the weapons into the armoire he has not used, and then wraps the shoe nails in the soiled cloth, setting that in the back bottom corner of the armoire. After relocking both doors, he forces himself to the study, and despite his slight headache, focuses the glass on Flutak.

The silver mists swirl, revealing that Flutak is in his bedchamber, apparently alone, reading a scroll by the light of a lamp on the table beside the bedstead. Lorn lets the image lapse, then turns and leaves the study.

He reclaims the Brystan blade and scabbard, and the firelance, before he departs his quarters by the front door, which he locks as he leaves, not that locking seems to have had much effect. The courtyard remains quiet, as is the stable, and no one disturbs Lorn as he saddles the chestnut.

“Easy, girl…easy.”

It takes him longer than it would the ostler, but before too much time has passed, he rides across the courtyard.

“Who goes?” comes the voice of a guard. “Show yourself.”

“Overcaptain Lorn. I’m taking an evening ride.”

“Ser?”

Lorn slows the chestnut so that the lancer can see his face. “I trust I will not be too long.”

“Ah…yes, ser.”

“Good evening, Lancer.”

Lorn guides the mount out the gate and down toward the harbor, toward the west road that will turn southward. The air is chill, a cold wind coming off the Northern Ocean with a dampness that promises a cold rain.

Once he is past the piers, Lorn turns westward, following the winding road, one hand ready to reach for the firelance in its holder, but the road remains dark and empty, and deserted as the chestnut carries him westward and south. While he does not know Biehl well, with the ride of the afternoon, his night vision, and his chaos-senses, he can find Flutak’s villa-and the enumerator’s bedchamber.

Still, in the darkness, the ride takes far longer than Lorn had recalled-or perhaps it seems but longer-until he is finally riding up a gentle slope toward the sprawling hillside villa. Below the villa on the south side of the slope is a stable, but Lorn guides the chestnut more to the north, where he finds a slender sapling beside the road. There he dismounts in the darkness and ties his mount to the tree.

Firelance in hand, he eases through the small olive orchard until he is less than a hundred cubits from the villa. For a time, he listens, and casts forth his chaos-senses, but he can sense only three figures moving-two sentries by the front door, and a third somewhere in the rear.

Lorn circles toward the rear of the villa, where he scales-slowly-a low brick wall in a spot shielded by what feels like a pearapple tree. Concealed by darkness and the tree limb, from the top of the wall Lorn studies the small courtyard.

The guard, who had appeared to be half-dozing on a stool, sits up abruptly as the Hamorian killer mastiff glides toward the wall beneath Lorn, growling softly.

“What is it? Another cat?” mumbles the guard.

The huge mastiff growls, again from below Lorn, then lunges upward.

Lorn levels the firelance, using it quickly on the guard, before the man can give an alarm, and then on the mastiff. He waits for a moment, but the faint thud of the guard’s falling body goes unnoticed.

Lorn drops into the rear courtyard, where he uses more of the charge to ensure no trace of either guard or mastiff remains. He tosses the coins and metal nails over the wall before setting the guard’s blade carefully on the stool and easing his way toward the rear door.

His senses can detect no one within the house who is moving, although there are servants or retainers sleeping in the south wing of the dwelling. The two guards in the front remain where they have been.

Is Flutak the noble and honest enumerator demanded by his position?

With significant portions of the Mirror Lancer payroll never delivered? With three guards and a deadly Hamorian mastiff? The largest villa in Biehl? Hiring three assassins to go after Lorn as soon as Lorn has suggested all is not as it should be?

The only sounds are those of the wind in the privacy hedges. Lorn’s lips curl ruefully. Acting before anyone suspects such action has certain benefits, except that Flutak had also acted that way. Lorn hopes that he has foreseen more than has the enumerator.

The rear door, shielded by a token privacy hedge before which the sentry had been stationed, is barred from within. Lorn studies it for a moment with his chaos-senses, then lifts the lance and places it against the slight gap between the door and the frame. He triggers the lance, willing the chaos into a tight line.

His forehead is damp by the time the chaos has burned through the heavy bar, but the door remains closed. Lorn lets his chaos-senses touch the plate on the inside lock. His forehead is far warmer by the time the bronze bolt slides back under the pressure of focused chaos. Then, and only then, will the latch lift, allowing the door to swing wide, silently.

The wide tiled room he enters is empty.

Ignoring the intensification of his headache, Lorn slips down the short corridor to the bedchamber, wondering if he will need to burn through another bar. He does not. Like most chambers within Cyadoran homes, the door has but a latch, and that lifts easily as he slides into the chamber, where the sole sounds are the loud snores of the sleeping enumerator.

Hssst! The firelance flares once.

From the far side of the bulky enumerator’s body, a more slender figure bolts upright, her mouth opening.

Hsst! The firelance flares again, although Lorn’s fingers are shaking as he lowers the weapon. He stands stock-still for a moment, swallowing silently. He knows he had no real choice, not after killing Flutak. Had Lorn not used the lance a second time, all would know what he has done, with a witness-and probably escaping servants who would also know, not to mention the guards in the front.

Nor can he afford to ride out, night after night, not after killing a mastiff and a guard. His lips tighten, even as his eyes burn momentarily. Why were there always innocents caught up with those who are less than honest?

Could he have done aught else? He knows that he will ask that question more than once as, slowly, he sets the firelance against the wall. Then, as he has done before in his own quarters, Lorn drags both figures onto a space of tile clear of rugs and upholstery, and plays the firelance across both, using his chaos mastery to direct and intensify the chaos-flames. There are no metal items to worry about. There are brown patches on the bed linens, but he can do nothing about those. Nor can he change what he has done, instantly reacting to kill the woman.

With another silent sigh, he eases back down the corridor and out the courtyard door, carrying the two pieces of the door bar. He climbs back over the wall, making a wide circuit of the villa.

The chestnut remains tied to the golden oak sapling. “Easy there…” Lorn unties her and mounts quickly, still carrying the wooden bar.

He rides slowly and carefully away from the villa. Neither the glass nor his chaos-senses had revealed the woman’s presence until he had killed the enumerator. Had he spared her, Lorn would likely have doomed himself. As it is, he treads a narrow and dangerous path.

He can tell himself that the woman was not totally innocent. The fact that she was probably the daughter of the olive-grower Baryat, who has doubtless been receiving special treatment from Flutak, suggests that the conspiracy to divert tariffs is not solely Flutak’s doing. The elaborate luxury of the villa and the guards only testify to Flutak’s corruption. Any woman who partook of the fruits of that corruption has made a choice.

But did she, really? Lorn knows his own sisters have few real choices. Was this woman any different?

Yet…what choices did Lorn have? If he had spared her, she would have given an alarm, and all too soon the trail would have pointed to Lorn.

Could Lorn have found some more clever way to deal with Flutak?

Perhaps his father could have, but Lorn has already found that his strengths do not lie in scheming, but in acting. With all the schemes already laid against him, he fears that not to act swiftly would have been his undoing.

And innocent men do not hire assassins immediately upon meeting a Mirror Lancer officer who only pledges to carry out his duty.

But…that does not change the sickening feeling that twists Lorn’s guts. Nor the anger that goes with his sadness and regret. Anger that he is faced once more with situations where no choices are perfect, and anger at himself for not foreseeing the complications.

Lorn rides slowly along the road back toward the compound.

A kay farther along toward the harbor, he drops the door bar’s sections into a drainage ditch. His head throbs, and even in the darkness, he is seeing double images. He has drawn far more chaos from around him than is wise, and used it far more than he would have preferred, and partly in ways he regrets…and will always regret.