L. Modesitt - Scion of Cyador

“Will you check Kerial?” she murmurs.

“I will.” After he pulls off his undertunic, he steps to the small bed and glances down, listening as much as looking. The small figure breathes evenly, regularly. Lorn smiles and steps away to hang his clothes in the armoire, then returns and slides under the covers next to his sleepy redhead.

“He’s fine.”

“Good.” She snuggles against him and seems to relax.

Lorn slips one arm around her, enjoying her closeness. But he stares through the darkness, and it is some time before he finally drops into sleep.

In the late afternoon, almost upon returning from Mirror Lancer Court, Lorn pulls the merchanter blues-those normally worn by a senior enumerator-from the back of the armoire. Then come the blue boots, stiff, but usable.

“It might yet be wiser to wait,” Ryalth says from the doorway, before stepping into the bedchamber.

“No…it would be safer for me to wait, but what if Tasjan does not dine at Ayadar next eightday…or the eightday after, then what? Rynst has indicated that, in no more than three eightdays, they will decide when the Mirror Lancers will leave Cyad, and that it is likely to be immediately. Then who will oppose Tasjan and the greensuits? If I wait until then, there will be no lancers, and then how could I oppose Tasjan, knowing that Sasyk would leave even more blood across all the sunstones?”

“So you will act sooner, rather than later, for fewer will suspect you now?”

“Most expect less action before decisions are made-especially in Cyad, where acting wrongly and early can be most dangerous.” Lorn offers a crooked smile.

Ryalth nods. “How will you do this?”

“With the blurring shield I showed you.” Lorn sits on the edge of the bed and pulls off his white lancer boots. “And some tree-climbing…”

“Will he not sense it?”

“I think not. That is why only the upper-level adepts are taught such, because it is an aversion, not the use of order to bend the chaos of light away from one. Use of much order or chaos creates a disruption that any sensitive to chaos or order may sense. This uses less chaos than that from the sun during the heat of the day.”

Ryalth frowns. “Will you wait until it is full dark?”

“No. I leave shortly-in merchanter blue.” He smiles. “These Jerial had made for me years ago still fit well enough.” The cream-and-green uniform comes off next, to be hung in the armoire, and Lorn pulls on the blue trousers, then the tunic.

“You would have the merchanters torn by strife?”

“They already are,” Lorn points out dryly as he sits to pull on the blue leather boots. “Tasjan is trying to overthrow Vyanat. Blouyal was using his position to gain unfair advantage for his house. Vyel wanted to kill you to take over Ryalor House. I suspect other problems have occurred with Kysan House, from what you have said, and Denys, you said, schemes to redeem Bluyet House.” He pauses. “My plan is to have it clear that one of Sasyk’s guards murdered Tasjan. I do not want the cream-and-green seen near Tasjan’s.”

“See that you do that.” She nods slowly. “Still…I do not like that you must act so quickly.”

“I like it not that I should have to act at all. Yet…I can sense far more is taking place than I know.”

“That is always so,” Ryalth responds.

Lorn holds a frown. She is not telling all she knows. “What else should I know?”

Ryalth shrugs, almost helplessly. “I fear that Sasyk holds more power in the Dyjani House than any realize, but that I do not know. Like you, I can feel currents beneath the surface of a harbor that seems calm. Yet I can see nothing.”

“As can I. And if we wait until we can…”

“Then it may be too late,” Ryalth concludes.

Lorn nods, then stands. “Best I be going.” He fastens the Brystan sabre to his blue belt. While most enumerators do not wear blades, some do, and there is no standard for what type of blade they wear, save that it can be worn off a belt.

“Be most careful, my love.”

“I intend such. Since I will not follow Alyiakal…I must be most careful so that you can support me when I am stipended off as an old, old majer.”

“Were it to happen so, that would be only fair. You have made possible all that is Ryalor House.” She smiles, then leans forward and embraces him, brushing his cheek with her lips. “Be most careful.”

“I will.”

They walk down the stairs and out onto the veranda. With a single backward glance, Lorn walks from the veranda, past the fountain, and out the gate, locking it behind him. His blues should not be remarked, for most know that the dwelling belongs to a trader.

In the twilight, Lorn walks westward down the lane and then up the Fifth Harbor Way. At the next corner, he turns westward once more until he reaches the Eighth Harbor Way, although, like all ways and roads outside of the central trading quarter of Cyad, it is unmarked.

Tasjan’s dwelling occupies a small block of its own, and at the first level, the building walls are blank stone and offer no windows or entrance except for the carriage gate and a service door, and both are guarded inside and out. There are no other guards outside the dwelling. The tall trees-Lorn has no idea what they are-grow outside the walls and arch over the upper-level porticos. They are still shedding second-year leaves and turning the first-year leaves gray for winter, but all those on the main ways have been trimmed of lower branches.

Lorn continues westward on the unnamed lane at the back of the dwelling until he reaches the gnarled tree that stands perhaps fifty cubits east of the west corner. He thinks the tree is a lorken, whose dark wood resists most axes and all but the sharpest saws. The tree is far shorter than the others, and its topmost branches barely reach the top of the second-level portico columns. Those short branches are sturdy, and the remaining leaves barely move despite the cold wind blowing northward off the harbor.

Lorn eases the blurring shield around himself. He has to jump to grasp the lowermost branch, and then levers himself into the tree. His scabbard slams against his leg, hard enough that it will probably leave a bruise, and he sits on the branch in the fading light, catching his breath for a moment.

Then he begins to climb, testing each branch. The wind that rustles the branches of the taller trees will help, both in disguising any movement of the leaves of the lorken, and in concealing any sounds he may make.

When he stands as high as he can safely go, he is three cubits from the stone railing. To reach the railing will take a leap-one that must be successful or he will fall close to twenty cubits onto hard stone.

He extends his chaos-senses, and listens closely, as well.

A single guard walks past. Once the man is more than fifteen cubits away, still pacing eastward, Lorn takes a deep breath, then leaps.

Again he must lever himself up and over the railing, and he stands in the shadows of the portico pillars, catching his breath, while he waits for the return of the single guard in green who patrols the corner post of the second-level covered portico that encloses the garden

As the man passes, Lorn steps out, and using his chaos-enhanced Brystan blade, takes a single cut. There is little more than a muted cry, a gurgle, and the sound of a body falling on pebbles.

Lorn wipes his blade on the green tunic of the dead guard, then eases the shortsword from the man’s scabbard. He glances around, letting his chaos-senses scan the area, but no one is near.

He concentrates, and chaos flares across the body.

All that remain are some coins, some iron nails, and a few metal studs. Using his kerchief to protect his fingers from the lingering heat, Lorn scoops up the items and tosses them out and over the railing. The faint clink of the coins on the stones below cannot even be heard.