L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“Yes, ser.” Lorn nods.

Kien’elth stands slowly. “I wish …” He shrugs apologetically.

Lorn also stands. “I know, ser. It’s not your doing.”

“I can still wish, my son.”

Lorn lowers his head for a moment.

After he leaves the study, Lorn walks slowly along the covered portico of the upper level of the house, pausing to look southward through the rain that is beginning to taper off toward the gray stormy waters of the harbor, waters more often than not usually an intense blue, with the intensity of the water’s color underscored by the white sunstone piers. Today, the piers are gray, like the sky and the water.

Then he descends one level and slips toward the rear ofthe dwelling. There, he pauses before the closed door of his older sister’s chambers.

“You can come in, Lorn,” Jerial calls.

He opens the heavy oak door, slowly, and closes it behind him.

As usual, Jerial wears a form-fitting tunic-this one of a silky black that shows her petite but well-endowed figure. She stands beside a polished white oak table desk that is almost empty, and her eyes are intent as she studies Lorn. Beyond the narrow archway, Lorn sees the bed chamber, with the dark blue coverlet set neatly on the narrow bed, and the tables as neat as the sitting room where they stand.

“Dice?” Lorn looks at the six white cubes on his sister’s table. “I suppose there’s the uniform of a beardless junior lancer in your wardrobe?”

“No.” Jerial smiles back. “That of a young merchanter, a spoiled youth who has more coins than sense. Someone who loses most of the time, but loses little, and wins seldom, but well. Not, shall we say, a scholarly enumerator.”

Lorn looks from the dice to the wardrobe and then back to the dice.

“Why not?” asks Jerial. “I can be a healer, or a brood mare. Neither will gain me golds nor independence.”

“You have the golds invested in the Exchange?” Lorn raises his eyebrows.

“No. The Bank of the Clanless Traders. There’s no interest, but far fewer questions.”

“Something like Jeron’mer?”

“You might say so,” Jerial replies, “but I’d appreciate your not asking.”

“In case you’re forced into being a brood mare? So I can’t reveal anything to father?”

Jerial nods, then smiles wryly. “I like Cyad, Lorn, but not enough to consort with someone I detest. So far, I’ve managed to steer father away from people like Ciesrt ….”

“I see.” His sister’s words remind Lom-again-that he has yet to do anything about the impending consorting of Myryan to Ciesrt. His eyes light on Jerial’s face, taking inthe determined and set chin, the hard and piercing blue eyes. “What’s Ciesrt’s weakness?”

Jerial shrugs. “He has no strengths.”

Lorn nods. “And no principles, except self-interest.”

“You, my brother, do well enough to conceal such.” Jerial’s eyebrows both arch.

“Maybe I’m like him, then.”

“No one would ever say that, even Dettaur, and he detests you. He thinks you’re the one who broke his fingers years ago.”

“That could be a problem in time to come. I’m leaving for Kynstaar in the morning,” Lorn says quietly.

“Is that why you’re here?”

“I thought you’d like to know.” He grins insouciantly, as if he were on the korfal field or in a coffee house.

“At least you can be an officer, and Dettaur won’t be that senior to you.”

“If I don’t get thrown from a mount or ‘accidentally’ incinerated by a firelance, you mean?” Lorn’s laugh is half humorous, half deprecating. “I have some chance of surviving there.”

“You have no illusions, brother dear?” Jerial’s laugh is somehow both ironic and supportive. “That will doubtless help.”

“I wanted to talk about healing,” he says.

Jerial nods. “You would.”

“I’ve seen you and Myryan do it. There’s a black mist that enfolds you-is that why you like black?”

“Black has its uses, one of which is illusion.”

“Ciesrt wouldn’t like black,” Lorn notes. “About the healing?”

“I think of it almost as an order of sorts. It’s the opposite of the surging power of chaos, and there really are two kinds of chaos, the unclean kind in a wound and the kind in the towers and the power cells of the firewagons-”

“You’ve never been near a tower,” Lorn says.

“I don’t have to be. Father has been clear that the chaos that powers the firewagons is the same as the chaos thatcomes from the towers. You’ve all talked about how the Magi’i transfer that chaos into the firewagons, and I’ve certainly been close enough to firewagons to sense the difference.”

“And you’ve looked with all your senses. Most healers don’t.”

“Except healers raised in this house,” counters Jerial.

“That’s true enough.” He glances from Jerial to the dice, and then back to her fine-featured face, a visage that, for all its beauty, might have been carved from sunstone or granite.

“What do you want to do with what I show you?” Jerial asks.

Lorn offers a lazy smile, hoping he will not have to respond verbally.

“Brother dear … you’re sweet when you want to be, but you use everyone and everything.” Her hard smile softens. “Sometimes.”

“I’ve tried not to hurt either of you.”

“You’ve learned to use people, including us, without hurting them, but it’s still use, Lorn. Remember when you gave both Myryan and me those chaos-cut emeralds set in cupridium.”

“Yes,” Lorn admits warily.

“You never told mother and father, did you?”

“No.”

“But they knew all the same.” Jerial smiles as if the answer were obvious.

“I suppose so.”

“How would either of us wear something that costly without mother or father asking?” She laughs. “That way, you created the impression of modesty and caring.” A shrug follows. “I know you care, but you also wanted them to know you cared, and you impressed them all the more by doing it quietly.” A crooked smile follows. “And … they couldn’t ask you how you managed to come up with all those golds.”

Lorn flushes.

“How did you? Gambling … or theft?”

Lorn steels himself, then shrugs reluctantly. “Neither.Trade. You know that. That’s why you talked about enumerators.”

“You aren’t allowed to handle coins, and the Lectors-oh … who is it? What woman, I should ask. It would have to be a merchanter woman.” Abruptly, she laughs. “The scent! Of course.” Jerial shakes her head. “So much scent that we all thought …”

“I don’t believe you’ve met her,” Lorn says quietly. “I’ve known her for over a year. Over two,” he corrects himself.

“Do you … I won’t ask that.”

“Thank you.”

“You must want to know about healing badly … or you wouldn’t have given away so much. You can’t use it on yourself, you know? Except to keep flux-chaos out, if you have the strength.”

“I know.”

“Very astute.” Jerial nods. “I’ll show you some more.” She smiles. “Myryan told me what she showed you.”

“A man has no secrets ….” he protests.

“From his sisters?” She laughs warmly. “Not too many, but you hold more than most men.”

Lorn sincerely hopes so. Most sincerely.

LORN STANDS BESIDE the immaculate white oak desk-table in his own chambers, glancing out through the glass window at the cold mist that has replaced the earlier rain. He will be leaving in the morning for Kynstaar, and his promise to Myryan remains unfulfilled. He purses his lips as he looks toward the rain he does not see.

The problem with Ciesrt is not the student magus himself, who is about to become a fourth level adept, but his sire, Kharl’elth, the Second Magus and Senior Lector. Consorting Myryan to Ciesrt is advantageous to both families. The talent for handling chaos runs strongly in Kien’elth’s children, evenin Vernt, if slightly less powerfully, and any children that Myryan might bear will have a far better chance of holding the talent than those of anyone else that Ciesrt might take as consort. The alliance will also benefit Vernt, and both parents-even Lorn. The one person it will not benefit is the sensitive Myryan.