Scepters (3 page)

By
the time he was washed up, everyone else was seated at the table, and Alucius
hurried to sit down.

“Which
of you two?” asked Lucenda, looking at her son and then at Wendra.

“Wendra,”
suggested Alucius.

Wendra
grinned ruefully at her husband, giving a slight shake to her head that
shivered her lustrous brown hair.

The
four bowed their heads.

Wendra
spoke clearly. “In the name of the One Who Was, Is, and Will Be, we thank you
for what we have, and for what we have received, and for this food before us.
May this blessing fall upon both the deserving and the undeserving, and may both
strive to do good in the world and beyond…”

Once
she had finished the blessing, Wendra stood and began serving the fowl
casserole onto the platters, handing them out, first to Royalt, then Lucenda,
Alucius, and herself.

“The
bread’s fresh baked,” Lucenda offered. “Wendra said there ought to be something
that wasn’t a leftover.”

“There
wasn’t enough for supper, anyway.” The younger woman’s eyes sparkled as she
looked at Royalt.

“Was
hungry when I got back from town,” grumped Alucius’s grand-sire. “Long hot
ride. Hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast.”

“He
did get a half barrel of southern rice,” Lucenda said. “That will help this
winter.”

“And
some of the hard green apples that keep,” added Wendra.

“Ferrat
had the replacement shear plates ready. Cost two golds for each.” Royalt shook
his head. “Last time was only a gold.”

“That
was almost four years ago,” Lucenda pointed out.

“Prices
shouldn’t double in four years. Kustyl was telling me that a bunch of growers
near-on killed a usurer down in Dekhron. Not the one who’s one of Mairee’s
cousins, but another fellow. One who clips coins before lending them.”

“That
sounds like Ceannon,” remarked Lucenda.

“Was
him, now that I recall,” said Royalt. “Never even had to worry about usurers
before. This union with Lanachrona… was supposed to keep tariffs and prices
down.”

“One
out of two isn’t bad,” suggested Lucenda. “The Lord-Protector has kept our
tariffs low.”

“That
was because of Alucius, wasn’t it?” asked Wendra innocently.

Alucius
knew the question wasn’t innocent, but a gentle reminder.

Royalt
laughed. “She sure sticks up for you, Alucius.”

“Who
better?” Alucius grinned, but the grin faded. “You think most prices are up
that much?”

“Lot
of ‘em,” Royalt said. “Not too bad for us. Yet. Nightsilk futures are getting
close to twenty-five golds a yard.”

That
was nearly double the highest prices of two years before, as Alucius recalled.

“That’s
fine for us,” Lucenda pointed out, “but what about for people like Kyrial?” She
glanced at Wendra.

“It’s
been hard for Father. Korcler told me that when he loaded the half barrels last
week. Coopers don’t have people coming from Tempre and Borlan to buy their
barrels. Korcler did
say that
Father had someone who
was inquiring, though.” She paused. “If it weren’t for Mother’s sewing…”

Alucius
nodded. He and Wendra had slipped some golds to Clerynda—Wendra’s mother—but
with the price of solvents and machinery and equipment rising, there was a
limit to what they could do—and might be able to do in the future.

“Don’t
see why all this is happening,” Royalt said. “No wars, no fighting. Been a
little dry the past two years, but we’ve seen worse.”

“Little
things adding up?” asked Alucius.

“Could
be,” admitted the older man. “Kustyl said that tin ingots were double what they
used to be—have to get those from Lustrea—and the purple dyes from Dramuria are
way up, too. Kustyl thinks something strange is going on with the traders in
Dekhron.”

“Grandpa
Kustyl always worries about Dekhron,” Wendra pointed out.

“That’s
because there’s a lot to worry about,” said Alucius. “If not with the traders,
then with Colonel Weslyn.”

“You’ve
never liked Weslyn, have you?” asked Royalt.

“Not
really.”

“Kustyl’s
not even that kind to him,” replied Royalt. “Calls him a sneak. Says he smiles
to your face and then poisons your ale. Always thought he was behind Clyon’s
death.”

“I
don’t think he had anything to do with it, except indirectly,” Alucius replied.
“He’s too much of a coward. Someone else had Clyon poisoned once Weslyn became
the deputy commander because they knew Weslyn wouldn’t do anything to upset
anyone—especially the traders.”

“That’d
make sense. That way, no one could challenge him because he wasn’t involved in
Clyon’s death. Then, if someone else had been deputy commander…”

“The
militia had Dysar before him. You think he would have been any better?”

Royalt
shook his head. “Traders like Ostar owned Dysar fleece and horns. Same way they
do Weslyn.”

“Didn’t
something happen to Ostar?”

“He
died, like a lot of traders in the past couple of years—fires, illnesses,
something like seven or eight. Ostar was one of ‘em. In fact, most of those who
liked Dysar are dead. They liked Weslyn, too. That’s what Kustyl and I can’t reckon.”

“Is
there anyone left?”

“Of
the older ones? Tarolt, I think, and his nephew Halanat. Halanat’s more like
the age of Kyrial, though.”

“You
know either?”

“Only
by name. Kustyl said he met Halanat years back. Didn’t like him then. Didn’t
see any reason to see him again.”

Alucius
laughed.

“Can
we stop talking about how corrupt Dekhron is?” asked Lucenda. “We can’t do much
about it tonight. There’s still half a pie left from last night.” Without
waiting for an answer, she began to cut slices until she had cut the remaining
apple pie into four equal sections, then passed them out on the smaller plates.

After
a mouthful of the pie, Wendra looked up. “Grandpa Kustyl stopped by today.”

Alucius
took a swallow of ale, then grinned. “He stops by more now than he used to.”

“He
wants to make sure his granddaughter is taking care of herself,” Lucenda said. “He’s
still surprised that she turned out to be a true herder.”

“And
now he’s watching me like a prize ewe,” Wendra added. “All of you were the ones
who saw I was a herder. Not him.”

“It
was Alucius,” Royalt said. “Told me to take you out on the stead.”

“I’m
glad I did,” Alucius said.

“Don’t
take too much credit,” Lucenda suggested.

Rather
than answer that, Alucius took another bite of pie.

“You
see the soarer again?” asked Royalt after a moment.

“I
only saw her that one time, a week back,” Alucius said.

“Used
to look forward to seeing them. Now… don’t know as I do,” replied the older
man. “Wouldn’t want to see them gone, though. Don’t see as many sanders,
either.”

“There’s
a connection there,” Alucius observed.

“You
keep saying that,” Lucenda said, “but you’ve never said what it is.”

“That’s
because—as I also keep saying—I don’t know. There are a few things I don’t
know.”

“That’s
good to hear,” Royalt quipped dryly. “Beginning to think you’re taking yourself
too serious-like.”

Alucius
flushed.

The
Duarchy lasted twice five hundred years, and for all those ages its eternastone
high roads crossed Corns from north to south and east to west, saving only the
Aerial Plateau and the Anvils of Hel. Great carriages slipped along the roads,
drawn by the tireless sandoxes. The traders’ wagons followed, also pulled by
sandoxes, filled with goods of every imaginable type—black nightsilk from the
north of Eastice, smoothed lorken planks from Harm and Fola, the sparkling and
still wines of Vyan, and the tapestries of far and fair Alustre.

The
Myrmidons of Duality swept through the skies on their pteridons, carrying
messages and dispatches from one end of Corus to the other, searching out rogue
soarers and dispatching them to keep the skies and the ground beneath those
skies safe for all. The Alectors of Justice reigned over each city, town, and
hamlet, and kept the peace so that each man, each woman, and all children could
walk every lane and road, every grove and grotto, and never fear for their
safety. The Cadmians used their lightning-jagged blades against the barbarians
of the isles and against lesser wrongdoers. The dolphin ships of the
Duadmiralty kept the oceans and the coasts free from strife, piracy, and
depredations.

The
sun shined out of a silver-green sky and blessed the Duarchy and all its
peoples under the dual scepters.

Then…
in less than an instant, the Cataclysm struck Corus, and, in a season or less,
the sandoxes sickened and vanished. The pteridons shriveled into less than dust
and vanished. The rivers ran red with blood. Ice flowed from the skies. The air
that had been so fair, and perfumed, became as thin and as acrid as vinegar.
Streams dried in their beds, rivers in their courses, never to flow again.

Winds
swept from the Aerial Plateau with such force that all the trees to the south
of the Black Cliffs were felled in a single afternoon and buried, leaving but
the Moors of Yesterday. The vales of prosperity became the Sloughs of
Despondency.

Fair
Elcien, the western capital, sank a hundred yards into the Bright Bay, leaving
but the tips of the towers above the mud that covered all.

Warm
and lively Ludar, the southern capital, vanished beneath the waters in an
instant, and none living there were ever seen again, nor were any of the walls
and towers and parks…

Excerpt from:

Mantra
of Mourning

On
Duadi, Wendra drove the team to Iron Stem while Alucius sat in the wagon seat
beside her, watching the high road and the quarasote flats beside it. The heavy
rifle was in the holder beside him. Whenever he saw the gray eternastones of
the road, he had to marvel, and wonder, at the magic technology of the
ancients—or the ifrits—that had created those stones, which were harder than
almost any substance and which, if scarred, repaired themselves over time.

“You’re
thinking about the road, aren’t you?” asked Wendra with a smile.

“Because
I always do? There’s something about it.”

“It’s
alive, in a way, I think,” she replied.

“You’ve
never said that before.”

“I
hadn’t thought about it.”

What
would make a road alive? He thought about the great high roads, especially the
one through the Upper Spine Mountains into Deforya, where the ancients had cut
through the very rocks of the mountains and formed a perfectly straight and
unnatural canyon to carry the high road. Abruptly, he wanted to kick himself,
or pound his head. It was just that he’d never considered the thought that the
high road might have a form of life. But once he realized that, and what the
soarer had taught him, the rest fit.

“You’re
upset—or worried,” Wendra said. “I can feel it.”

“You
remember how I told you about how dead some of the lands were, especially in
Deforya? That’s where they have the great long high road, and that canyon—”

“Oh!”
Wendra’s hand went to her mouth. “You think that they—”

“I
couldn’t prove it, but I’d wager that the ifrits sucked the very life out of
the land and poured it into the road. They couldn’t do it everywhere, or even
very many places, but I’d wager that, if we looked, we’d find patches and
places along the sides of the high roads that are still dead, or once were dead
and still have only a little life.”

“They’d
do that?”

“What
do you think?” Alucius gestured to the ancient spire of the tower ahead, its
brilliant green stone facing visible over the low hills from several vingts to
the north. “How else could they create structures that held together for so
long? If you look at the high roads at night with Talent, you can see the glow.
I just didn’t think of them in that way.” He should have, but who would have
thought that anyone would squander lifeforces that way—or had that ability?

“Why
would you?” asked Wendra. “We don’t think that way.”

Alucius
just shook his head, wondering what else that obvious he had missed. He also
still worried about the appearance of the soarer.

Before
long, past several low rises, the warrens of the long wooden sheds of the
dustcat works appeared on the east side of the road, sheds all sealed to the
outside so that the dustcat dander, worth more than its weight in gems for the
sensations it provided, could not escape.

“Have
you ever seen Alyna?” asked Alucius.

“No.
I still can’t believe she agreed to be a scutter. She seemed brighter than
that. Even the pleasure palace would be better than working the dustcats for
Gortal. But she knew better.” Wendra sighed. “How anyone…” Her words died away.

After
passing the dustcat works, Wendra guided the wagon along the road toward the
empty green stone tower and the lower building just south of it. The tower
walls had remained intact, seemingly pristine and untouched, not by choice,
since building materials were rare in Iron Stem, but because the
ancients—rather the ifrits, Alucius knew—had used a lost technique to bond all
the exterior stones together, a technique resistant to chisels, mauls, hammers,
and even those with the Talent. Whether the interior had not been so protected
or whether it had always been empty, Alucius did not know, only that similar
towers rose all across Corus, all with vacant interiors, even without steps or
interior levels. What remained of the tower was a hollow shell that rose,
uselessly, nearly a hundred yards into the silver-green sky.

The
pleasure palace, dubbed such generations before, was a low stone structure. The
long-dead builders, some centuries back, had attempted to create a pattern in
the walls by alternating those stones with the bonded blue finish with those of
green. Unfortunately, after five courses of stone, they had run out of the
green-faced building stones and had then used interior stones faced with yellow
to alternate with the blue stones. Where the stones had come from, no one alive
knew. Over the years that had followed, the yellow had faded into a sickly and
uneven beige, but the blue and green had not.