L. Modesitt: Cyador’s Heirs

The boy and the girl sit on a carved wooden bench in the shade beside the small courtyard fountain. He has pale white skin, unruly red hair and a strong straight nose just short of being considered excessive. Her hair is black, as are her eyes, and her skin is smooth, if the light tan of aged parchment. Her name is Kyedra. His is Lerial.

Four guards watch them. Two wear white long-sleeved tunics with faded green trim, and bear scarce cupridium blades in worn scabbards. The other two sport silvered iron breastplates over dull crimson short-sleeved tunics. Their shortswords are of dark iron, carried in oiled leather scabbards that are more like large knife sheaths. The Lancers in green watch the guards in crimson, while the guards in crimson watch the boy. No one watches the girl, who fingers a heavy brocade head scarf that she has let slip to reveal some of her hair and her lower face, an act that would be severely condemned were she of lesser rank, older, or in public.

“Why are your guards called Lancers?” She finally breaks the silence.

“They’re supposed to be called Mirror Lancers, but no one except the family or other Lancers calls them that. I forget why.” Lerial has not forgotten. He would prefer not to explain, especially when speaking the Hamorian of Afrit, but since the girl just introduced to him as Kyedra less than a quarter glass before speaks no Cyadoran, he has no choice but to speak in her tongue.

Once more, the two do not speak for a time, until the girl asks, “Does your name mean something special in your tongue?”

Lerial considers what he should say for a moment before replying. “My grandfather was the Emperor Lephi. One of my ancestors was the Emperor Kerial. My grandmother felt I should be named after both.”

“There are no Emperors in Hamor. There never have been.” Her voice is firmly serious.

“They were Emperors of Cyador,” declares Lerial.

“The land that the sea destroyed?”

“The sea only destroyed Cyad. That was the capital … and maybe Fyrad. The Accursed Forest destroyed most of the other cities and covered the land with endless forest. That was why we came to Hamor.”

“My father says you never should have come. He says that Afrit will never be the same.”

Lerial knows not to say anything about that. “Why did your father bring you here?”

“He said I should see Cigoerne. He said it was different.”

Lerial can feel that there is more she has not said. “Is it?”

Kyedra nods solemnly.

“How is it different?”

“I thought it would be smaller, and that all the people would be taller.”

“Why? Because we have held the river for years against the Heldyans?”

“Father doesn’t like them. He likes them less than you.”

“What about the raiders from the south?”

“He doesn’t like them either. They smell bad, he says.”

Lerial nods and waits.

“How did you come to Hamor?” Kyedra asks after another long silence.

“You don’t know the story?” Surely, the daughter of the Duke of Afrit should know that, thinks Lerial.

“I know the sea destroyed Cyador … Cyad, anyway. You came across the Great Western Ocean on a white metal ship. You threatened to sink all the ships in the harbor at Swartheld. My grandfather allowed your father-”

“My grandmother. The Empress. Go on.”

“My grandfather allowed your grandmother to purchase these lands. That’s what I know. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“My grandmother was the Empress. She gathered the Mirror Lancers and the Magi’i onto the Kerial. That was the last fireship. They got out of the harbor at Cyad just before the big waves smashed and swallowed everything. Then they took the ship to Fyrad, but the entire city was gone. There was just a big bay there. All the towns along the coast were gone, too. So she ordered the captain to cross the ocean to Hamor. Some people died. When they got to Swartheld … well, you know that part. Then the fireship carried them up the river here, and the Magi’i and the Lancers began to build. My grandmother told them what to do. The fireship stopped the Heldyans and the raiders from Merowey from coming downriver and bothering people. That was what Grandmother promised.” Lerial stops and looks at Kyedra, then says, “It wasn’t that simple. That’s what…” He does not finish the sentence, realizing that he doesn’t want to admit that it was his mother who had told him that building Cigoerne and expanding the lands controlled by the Magi’i had been anything but simple.

“What about your grandmother?” asks Kyedra.

“I told you about her.”

“You said what she did. You didn’t say what she was like. Was she ugly, the way…” The girl stops.

Lerial does not press, knowing that someone, perhaps her father, had said that about his grandmother. “She was kind to me, but she didn’t put up with any misbehavior. She even swatted my brother.” Lephi deserved it. He was hurting the cat that lived in the stable. “She was grand and tall, and no one argued with her. Not any of the Magi’i or the Mirror Lancers. Not even my father, and certainly not my aunt.”

“Your aunt?”

“Emerya.”

“She was the healer who saved Uncle Rham, wasn’t she?”

“She is.” Lerial knows he should not mention that Rham had attempted an ambush that would have killed his aunt, not when his brother the duke-and Kyedra’s father-is meeting with his own father. He still thinks Rham was sneaky and evil. He does not even consider saying so.

“Is she your favorite aunt?”

“I suppose so. She’s my only aunt. Do you have a favorite aunt?”

“Father only has brothers. They can’t have consorts unless he doesn’t have children. I have two brothers. They’re still little. Do you have other brothers or a sister?”

“Besides my brother Lephi, I have one sister. That’s Ryalah. She’s just two.”

“I wish I had a sister.”

Thinking about Ryalah, Lerial can’t imagine why anyone would want a sister. He also doesn’t want to talk anymore to the strange girl he is supposed to be nice to, but he dutifully asks, “Why?”

“My brothers are always fighting. They play rough.”

“Sisters can play rough.”

“Not in the palace of the Duke of Afrit. Not in Swartheld.” She pauses. “This isn’t much of a palace. It’s nice, but it’s small.”

Lerial glances around the north fountain courtyard, some twenty yards on a side. It doesn’t seem that small to him, although his mother has told him that it is tiny compared to the vanished Palace of Light.

The sun beats down on the palace, and Lerial tries not to trudge as he makes his way out into the private south courtyard that has always served as the arms practice area for the family-since the palace was completed some ten years earlier. The north and south courtyards are the same size, half that of the main central courtyard, with its multiple fountains and its walled gardens. The north courtyard has two fountains, making it cooler than the south courtyard, with its small single fountain, its paved open area for weapons practice, while the central courtyard boasts four fountains, spaced so that their mist cools the entire open space.

The wooden wand Lerial carries feels heavier than the cupridium blade he will use once his father has decided he is accomplished enough to ride with the Lancers on patrol missions, against either Heldyan border forces or the nomadic raiders that occasionally make their way northward through the grasslands of Merowey.

Lerial knows the heavy feel of the wand comes from what awaits him in sparring with Lephi, who is only three years older, and not that much taller, but far more at ease with a weapon in his hand than is Lerial, whether the weapon is a sabre or a bow or lance, not that Lerial has had any practice with a lance, and little enough with a bow.