L. Modesitt: Scion of Cyador

In addition to degenerative effects caused by excessive proximity to the towers, similar effects have been observed in those individuals among the non-technical cadre with an aptitude for manipulating such local spatiotemporal random-amplitude events. It is recommended that such individuals be placed so that they also can be monitored, and, if necessary, disciplined, in order to assure maximum operating continuity for the remaining tower cores.

Establishment of a hierarchial social structure may prove necessary, should these effects persist, since the conditions and infrastructure for continued technical education and understanding may be limited…

Recommendations, Personnel Manual [Revised], Cyad, 15 A.F.

Tyrsal and Lorn are seated in the garden at the rear of the sprawling and massive two-storied dwelling that overlooks the harbor from the western bluffs of Cyad. The air is cooler than in Cyad itself.

“You have a good view of the harbor here,” Lorn says.

“Not so good as that of your parents,” answers the redheaded mage. “And it was a long walk to the academy. Mother was not sympathetic to my riding or using the carriage. That’s why I stay with my sister and her consort most nights these days-out of habit, I suppose.” He shakes his head. “I dislike mornings.”

“The house is yours, isn’t it?” Lorn asks.

“I suppose so, but it’s really Mother’s, and it wouldn’t be right to take it from her.” Tyrsal smiles. “Besides, I can just claim I’m a poor junior magus, and that way, none of the Lectors will push me into consorting with someone I don’t like.”

“Like Aleyar or Syreal?” asks Lorn, with a grin.

“Syreal’s sweet. What she sees in that block Veljan, I don’t know. I don’t know Aleyar.”

“So you’d still consider her?” Lorn pursues. “They say she’s sweet and pretty, too.”

“Are you trying to complicate my life? Or just end it?” asks Tyrsal. “I don’t think it would be good for my health to deal with Liataphi all the time.”

“What about Ciesrt’s younger sister?” Lorn’s eyes twinkle.

“You want Ciesrt as…” Tyrsal shakes his head. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to believe. Myryan is so nice. Ciesrt doesn’t deserve her.” He pauses. “Anyway, Rustyl has asked Ciesrt’s sister, and she’ll say yes to him. He’s ambitious and a favorite of Chyenfel. So while she’ll put him off for a time, in the end, she’ll agree.”

“Kharl’elth will give her no choice,” Lorn suggests.

“You were so smart not to consort into a Magi’i family,” Tyrsal says.

“As if I had much choice,” Lorn points out.

“You could have had your pick of the lancer girls.” Tyrsal grins. “But you did much better. Ryalth is beautiful, and she’s smart.”

“You’ve scarcely talked to her, except at dinner the other night, and I don’t think you said a dozen words.”

Tyrsal draws himself up in offended dignity. “I listened. You learn when you listen.” His eyes smile, and then he laughs. “You haven’t said much about your new duty. You don’t like going to Biehl?”

“It’s not the assignment. It’s what’s behind it. I’m too young to be an overcaptain, and I’ve too little service. Zandrey had almost eight years before they made him one, and I’ve had four, five if you count officer training.”

“They’re losing a lot of officers to the barbarians, Lorn.”

“I’d bet I’ll only be there until I get set up to make some mistake…or until I get promoted again and sent to an impossible assignment against the Jeranyi or some such.”

Tyrsal laughs. “Nothing’s impossible for you. You’ll have it figured out before they send you. Didn’t you say you were studying bills of lading and the tariff rules? Did anyone suggest that to you?”

“It’s obvious. If you have to enforce trade rules, best you know something about them. I still won’t know the local situation, and that could be a mess.” Lorn takes a deep breath and holds up his hand. “I know. You’re going to tell me that while it’s obvious to me, it isn’t obvious to other lancers.” He offers a wry expression that is not exactly a smile. “I’m not other lancers.”

“That’s what I keep telling you. You’re always thinking ahead.”

“I try.” He pauses. “But that’s dangerous, too. People think you’re a plotter or a schemer. Or cold and calculating, and they watch you twice as closely.”

Trysal laughs again. “That’s why you never tell anyone anything.”

“Would you?” Lorn glances at the harbor and then stands. “I need to go. Ryalth should be almost done with the exchange-”

“And you don’t want to miss a moment with her!”

The overcaptain grins at the second-level adept magus. “It doesn’t take a chaos-glass to scree that.”

The cool spring rain patters on the roof tiles, collects there, and then flows in streams over the eaves, collecting in the rain gutters that line the structures and the white granite roads and ways of Cyad. Within Ryalth’s rooms, Lorn and his trader lady sit side by side in the bedchamber, propped up on the bed with pillows. On the table beside the bed a single lamp is lit.

Lorn holds a narrow, green-tinted, silver-covered volume in his hands, the one Ryalth had given to him to keep for her, years before, and insisted he read. “I’ve carried it everywhere, and yet there’s still not a mark on it.” He turns the book in his hands. “I still wonder how it came to your mother.”

“She never said. She just said it was special.”

Lorn nods, wondering how special…and whether the book is another subtle indication of how unusual Ryalth is-and why.

“You read from it often?” Ryalth asks.

“Not every night. I couldn’t when I was on patrol, and I didn’t want to take it with me.”

“Every eightday?”

“Usually.” He smiles. “Sometimes more often.”

“What do you think about the ancients now?”

“I don’t know about the ancients.” He frowns. “The writer was melancholy. They might not all have been like him.”

“Wouldn’t you have been, if you’d come from the Rational Stars to a wilderness? That’s what Cyador was, back then.”

“I’m not sure it still isn’t.” Lorn laughs.

“We have the prosperity of chaos, and the chaos-towers, and the roads and the harbor, all the things they built,” she points out.

“People are still unhappy.”

“Not all of them.”

“Some…” he teases.

“Enough.” She takes the book from his fingers, closes her eyes, and then opens it at random, handing it to Lorn. “Read this one.”

“You haven’t seen it.”

“Read it, please.”

Lorn clears his throat.

Chaos, and the promise of light,

Order, beckoning lady of night…

Should I again listen to which song?

We have listened oh so long.

Should I again fly on learning wings?

We have learned what yearning brings.

“That is melancholy,” she says. “Let’s try another one. You pick it.”

“And you read it,” he replies.

She nods.

Lorn closes his eyes and lets his fingers riffle through the smooth and heavy pages, finally stopping and handing her the open volume.

“This one always puzzled me,” she says as she looks at the slanted and antique Anglorian characters.

“Read it,” he suggests.

Ryalth’s voice is low, almost husky as she brings forth the words.

Cyad is no home for souls of thought,

who doubt the promises they have bought,

for the Magi’i offer Chaos as a Step to all.

The lancers back with fire their call,

their faces of cupridium’s silver-white

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