L. Modesitt - Magi'i of Cyador

“Hardly. If my father didn’t discipline me for that, the Lectors certainly would, and I’m not sure father wouldn’t be worse.”

“Ah …” Tyrsal swallows, then quickly asks, “What about the workings of the fireships and the firewagons? They’re all sealed, and anyone besides a magus who opens them gets chaos-fried.”

“Exactly,” suggests Lorn.

“I suppose you’re right,” Tyrsal concedes.

“Maybe I’m not, but we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Do you know if we’re going to see the same tower or another tower for the Magi’i?”

“The same, I’d imagine.”

“They all have to be close, don’t they?”

Lorn shrugs. “They could be anywhere in the Quarter. They do have to be surrounded by the heavy granite and sunstone, but everything in the Quarter of the Magi’i is built that way.”

“That’s true.” Tyrsal lapses into silence.

In time, the door to the discussion room opens, and Lector Abram’elth follows the other two students back inside. He does not’ close the wooden door to the corridor.

“Not a word,” the Lector says to Ciesrt and Rustyl, “not until we depart the room.” He beckons to Lorn and Tyrsal.

The remaining two students rise, and Ciesrt and Rustyl reseat themselves in the cool mid-day winter light that the very stones of the building have amplified in some indefinable fashion.

Without speaking, the Lector leads Lorn and Tyrsal out of the discussion room and along the corridor toward the private study rooms of the Magi’i of the school, then through a gleaming cupridium door, and along a narrower corridor which ends in another cupridium door that has neither latches nor handles nor knobs.

Knowing what must come next, Lorn watches the Lector with his senses as the man lifts his hand. The flash of golden energy follows, and Lorn withholds a nod of understanding as Abram’elth eases the heavy door into its recess. The three enter the second corridor where the floors, walls, and ceiling are all of white granite Lorn remembers.

Abram’elth stops and turns to the two students. “Up ahead you see the black shield. When you look through the black shield, you will see the Magi’i tower-the one that powers chaos cells used in the school and in the Palace of Eternal Light.” The Lector pauses, then adds. “Study the tower, not only with your eyes, but with your senses, and see the variants of chaos that exist. Do not even think about transferring chaos. If you do, both the tower and I will consume you with unfocused chaos.”

“Yes, ser.” Lorn’s and Tyrsal’s responses are nearly simultaneous.

“Tyrsal’elth, you may go first.”

“Yes, ser.” The redhead takes his place before the darkened square that is neither glass nor metal nor any substance yet made in centuries within Cyador, a single pane so dark it appears black. He stands there for a very long time before he steps away.

Abram’elth’s eyes and senses shift from Tyrsal to Lorn. “Lorn’elth.” The Lector’s voice rumbles in the granite-walled corridor.

Lorn walks to the window shield, where, through the dark aperture, he studies the shimmering tower enclosed withinthe insulated granite walls of the chaos-power station. He recalls a similar such vision, clearly unauthorized, from many years before, long before he had first seen a tower as a student magus.

Knowing that, he concentrates, but his eyes reveal to him little beyond the glaring silhouette of the tower. His chaos senses focus on the reddish-white chaos surrounding the bluish-white barrier that blocks the core from touching even the air that surrounds it. He feels, though he could not explain why, that the tower, this particular one, teeters on the edge of … nothingness … as if poised to fall into the world, or out of it. Yet the reddish chaos and the bluish chaos do not touch, although each pulses in response to the other.

After a time, Lorn steps away, his face expressionless.

After he does, the Lector studies Lorn, then Tyrsal, before he speaks. “What did you sense?”

“The pulse of chaos,” Lorn says mildly. “It is constant, yet ever-changing.”

“It is constant within chaotic bounds,” the Lector affirms. “It produces the same amount of chaos energy at all times.” He turns to Tyrsal.

“The chaos that surrounds the core,” offers Tyrsal.

“There is a barrier there,” confirms Lorn.

Abram’elth nods slowly. “Precisely, and that barrier must remain for the tower to continue operating.”

“What happens if it doesn’t, ser?” inquires Tyrsal.

“Then the tower will cease to be.” The Lector frowns. “Your lessons should have taught you that.”

“Yes, ser.” Tyrsal looks down.

Lorn realizes he must speak or forfeit the opportunity. Offering a guileless smile, he says slowly, “But there is chaosor something like it-on the other side of the barrier. Wouldn’t that escape or something?”

The Lector’s frown deepens as his eyes flick to the dark-haired student magus. “How do you know that?”

“You told us that there were several kinds of chaos, and asked us to try to use our chaos senses to determine them,”Lorn replies easily. “The chaos behind the barrier feels different, as you said it would.”

“I did say that,” muses the Lector, almost to himself, then he straightens. “No one knows for certain what will happen if the barrier fails, and no tower has yet failed since the first years of the founding of Cyad nearly two hundred years ago. And one of the tasks of the Magi’i, as you will discover, is to ensure that no tower does fail.”

Tyrsal and Lorn do not exchange glances, but they might well have, for Lorn knows that the Lector misleads with his last statement-not exactly a lie, but a statement verging on it, and Lorn knows Tyrsal understands that as well. Lorn also knows that Abram’elth does not know that Lorn and Tyrsal can sense such, for most students cannot sense such shading of the truth.

“Remember, the towers are the heart of Cyad and Cyador.”

“Yes, ser.”

The Lector believes his last statement, and that belief troubles Lorn more than the statement that had preceded it.

The two follow the Lector back along the corridor to the door where, again, Abram’elth raises his hand and focuses chaos before sliding the door open.

Once the three have traveled the white granite corridors and are back in the discussion room, where Ciesrt and Rustyl are waiting, the Lector surveys the four students.

“Tomorrow, you will begin your advanced chaos-transfer training in the firewagon hall. Consider what you have seen. You may speak of it only to other Magi’i or to students as advanced as you, and to no others. We will know if you speak otherwise. You may depart for the day.”

THE EMPEROR TOZIEL’ELTH’ALT’MER looks through the tinted glass windows of the Palace. His eyes focus on the harbor of Cyad, and the piers that house the White Fleet-although there are but two of the white-hulled fireships tiedthere presently. To the east of the fireships are tied a handful of coasting schooners, a brig that flies the jack of Brysta, and two other deep-sea vessels without jacks or ensigns flying.

North of the piers and closer to the Palace, the sunstonepaved streets glisten. The shops to the west sport green and white awnings, and under those immaculate canvases are the cafes and bakeries for which Cyad is known. Those who walk the streets are well-clad, whether in the shimmercloth affected by the Magi’i, the higher merchanters, or lancer officers-and their households-or in the hard-combed and tightly-woven cotton of the common people.

“Yet the least of the common folk is clad like a noble among the barbarians, and lives in greater comfort and cleanliness,” murmurs the Emperor. “And that is as it should be.” He turns and walks past the Great Hall, past the three-storyhigh gilded doors that can open so silently and swiftly that an observer who blinked might well miss their operation. Behind him follow two figures uniformed in silver-trimmed green, each with hand firelances-used but by the Palace Guard and those Mirror Lancers who guard the outside of the Palace of Light.