L. Modesitt - Scion of Cyador

“And until the merchanters strike, you can do nothing?” Lorn asks.

“Unless the merchanters threaten the city or the Palace, the Mirror Lancers will not shed blood. What the merchanters do within their houses is their affair.”

Lorn nods.

“Once it leaves the merchanters, it is our affair. Your affair, Majer, and I will not second-guess your actions or decisions. I only order you to make sure that whatever heir the Emperor names does take the Malachite Throne.” Rynst’s voice hardens. “Whomever the Emperor names. No matter what that name may be.”

“Yes, ser.”

“You are known as an officer whose word has always remained unbroken. Will it be so in this, Majer?”

“Yes, ser.”

Rynst nods abruptly. “Good. Best you see to your companies and to the engineers. I would judge that little will occur before tomorrow, but that is but a wager in a game whose rules are unannounced and changing with each passing moment.”

Lorn bows.

“And Majer…”

“Ser?”

“Without honor, without duty, you have nothing. Nor do I. The Majer-Commander of Mirror Lancers must never be a candidate for the Malachite Throne. Nor the Captain-Commander. Were that to happen…then none could trust the Mirror Lancers. I would hope the Magi’i would feel that way as well. I know Chyenfel did.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Good day, Majer.” Rynst turns back to the window, his eyes on the Palace of Eternal Light.

As he leaves the Majer-Commander, Lorn’s face is impassive, but the combination of duty and near-fatality in Rynst’s words chills him within. Rynst has as much as ordered him not to allow Luss to claim the Malachite Throne. Yet it is an unspoken order.

The white gelding remains where Lorn had tied him earlier in the morning, in the third stall in the small stable for visiting officers. Lorn gives the gelding a pat, then leads the horse out into a day that remains chill and hazy. As he rides the white gelding from Mirror Lancer Court down Third Harbor Way West, his eyes scan the streets. They seem almost as normal, although there may be a touch fewer souls about. Then, that may be because of the chill wind out of the northeast. He rides past the warehouse barracks to the next building, the one housing the Mirror Engineers and their large and small firecannon. He has barely dismounted and tied the gelding to the bronze ring of the innermost hitching post, before a ginger-bearded, balding, and young-faced captain steps out of the narrow doorway and toward Lorn.

“Ser.” Ghyrat bows. “I have received the Majer-Commander’s orders. What can we do for you?”

“Nothing…I hope, but I fear we will need both your cannon.”

“So do I.” Ghyrat fingers his pointed goatee. “The Majer-Commander would scarce order such were he not concerned. Yet he offered no reasons.”

Lorn nods. “I doubt he would wish any placed in ink. It appears likely that the Dyjani merchanters may use the piers to land ships and more of their greensuited guards, to require a merchanter heir to the Palace.”

“A merchanter heir?”

“The current head of Dyjani House has assembled more than tenscore of the armed greensuited guards. He is a former Mirror Lancer officer and has trained them to the same degree as are lancer rankers.”

“Tenscore?” Ghyrat swallows.

“Also, the First Magus was killed in an accident with a chaos-tower last night. How that may impact us…I am uncertain.”

“I would not guess, ser, save that it might make the merchanters more quick to act.”

“If any vessels appear with the Dyjani ensign or any that appear unknown or otherwise suspicious, can you move the firecannon quickly to the base of the pier? The large one?”

The engineer officer nods. “We can have it set to move.”

“Then do so, if you would. As quickly as you can.”

“We will. But you will have to give the orders to fire and upon whom.”

“If it comes to that, then I will.” Lorn holds back a frown. Rynst has given Lorn a clear chain of command, but to whom can Lorn turn? For he is not invincible, as he knows all too well.

“Ser?”

Lorn glances toward the harbor and the piers, empty except for a Sligan deepwater vessel and a Gallosian coaster. “I hope an heir is named soon, one that all accept, and that it does not come to the use of lances and cannon.”

“We all hope such, Majer,” replies Ghyrat. “But who is the man whom all will accept as heir and Emperor in these times?”

Who indeed?

“The Emperor has decided,” Lorn replies. “We are to support whatever that decision may be.” In chaos and in blood-the chaos and the blood Lorn has never wished upon Cyad, City of Eternal Light.

In the darkness after dusk, Rynst turns from the window, away from the myriad lamps that illumine the Palace of Eternal Light, and sits down behind his table desk. He looks at the blank sheet of parchment before him and shakes his head.

Then, in the glow cast from the lamps on his desk, he looks up as the faintest click comes from the latch to his study door. The ancient golden-oak door to the Majer-Commander’s study opens, then closes.

A faint breeze wafts from the door and then fades.

Deliberately, slowly, Rynst eases back his chair. The fingers of his left hand ease the black iron throwing knife from the slit pocket in his belt.

“I cannot say I am surprised, Kharl,” the Majer-Commander says slowly, though his eyes search the space between the door and his desk for any sign of the unusual. “Managing to get Rustyl to remove Chyenfel showed your touch.”

There is the slightest whisper of leather on the sunstone tiles of the study floor.

“I suppose Luss has no idea of this. That way you can have the Third Magus truth-read him, and Luss can answer honestly that he has no idea what happened.”

The figure of the Second Magus appears at the end of the conference table closest to the Majer-Commander. Kharl smiles ironically. “You say you would not be surprised, yet you still underestimate me.”

Rynst shakes his head as he eases his chair slightly farther back from the desk, his right hand visible on the edge of the wood. “No, honored Second Magus, I underestimated Chyenfel. I thought he would hold you more in check, and I thought you had some vestige of honor. I thought you would stop at becoming First Magus, and I did not realize you would sacrifice a chaos-tower to your endless ambition. Do you really think you can seize the Malachite Throne?”

“That depends on what the Empress announces as the Emperor’s decision, does it not? For now, I am First Magus, at least in practice, if not in title.” Kharl’s green eyes dance.

“For the moment.” Rynst shrugs, and then his left hand blurs, and the iron throwing knife flashes toward the red-haired magus.

Hsssst!

Firebolt and knife meet, but the chaos-flames and iron droplets splash back across Kharl’s left shoulder.

As the magus steps back, Rynst quickly slides out the cupridium-plated and iron-cored sabre from the scabbard fastened to the underside of his table desk, and leaps forward with the iron-cored blade in his right hand.

Kharl steps back, silently, giving ground.

Rynst holds the blade high, his eyes flicking between the midsection of the magus and his eyes, moving closer to Kharl.

Abruptly, firebolts flash toward the Majer-Commander from the left and then the right.

Rynst’s sabre flicks to the left, parrying one firebolt. His blade is slow on the return, and the second firebolt slams into his right shoulder. His blade drops from his numbed fingers. Another firebolt catches him full in the chest, and he topples forward.

For a long time, there is silence and the sound of one man’s heavy breathing.