“He says but little, saving that it would appear to be a matter of trade and personal affairs, and trade rivalries best be solved by traders, and that using the Hand to meddle in trade or the personal lives of traders can lead but to disaster.”
“Has he been right in what he advises?”
“More often than not.”
“So it is unlikely to be a plot hatched here, though many here may seek to benefit by such.” Ryenyel smiles but faintly. “Now, my dearest … that is the fashion in which it makes the most of logic, but not all plotters are of such logic. You must …”
“I know … set small traps to see who understands, and would use such, or who refuses to understand.” Toziel’s laugh is mirthless.
“Then, too,” Ryenyel continues, “there is the matter of the sabre. Does anyone know who could wield such? None of the Magi’i would dare, for the deadly danger it would poseto them. None of the lancers would benefit from the attributes of such a weapon. And the merchanters could neither wield it nor comprehend its power.”
“So there are two plots?” Toziel frowns. “And the second plotter a descendent of Alyiakal?”
“Only in spirit,” Ryenyel says quietly. “You must tread carefully, for I would wager that neither knows of the other, nor should they.”
After a moment of silence, they both nod.
Outside the mist lightens as the sun begins to struggle through the spring rain, and the greenery of the City of Light begins to reclaim the first city of Cyador from the gray-green of winter.
LXXII
THE RAINS OF the previous day have passed, but the air is warm, humid, and heavy, even in the early morning, as Second Company leaves the first waystation southeast of Jakaafra. The deadland is still muddy, with pools of shallow standing water, and with early mosquitoes humming everywhere. Mist hangs over and around the Accursed Forest to Lorn’s right, and above the ward-wall. The sun is barely above the fields to the east, a fuzzy orange-white ball in a sky more a mist-shrouded green than blue.
“Be a hot day, specially afternoon, ser,” says Kusyl from where he rides to Lorn’s left.
“Very hot.” Lorn glances toward the ward-wall nearly a kay away and at the mist that shrouds the massive trunks beyond the wall. Something does not feel right. He glances toward Kusyl. On the morning of the second day of the patrol, the second squad is deploying inward from the outer perimeter road, while Olisenn’s first squad will deploy in a line outward from the ward-wall road. “Kusyl-this morning, I’ll be riding with the first squad. I’ll ride with second squad this afternoon.”
“Yes, ser.” The squad leader’s cheerful voice indicates nothing.
Spreading the lancers into a line abreast and slogging through the mud will make for a long day, but keeping them on the roads will mean that too much of the Forest’s activity could go undetected, particularly roots or new shoots carried above or beyond the ward-wall during the storm of the night before. Lorn turns the gelding southward and urges him to catch up with Olisenn and his overlarge beast. Absently, he brushes away an inquiring mosquito.
Zzzzzzpp!
Lorn does not wince at the sound of a flowerfly being destroyed by the chaos-net cast upwards by the wards, but the sound does remind him that the peaceful scene is not what it seems.
At the sound of another mount nearing, Olisenn turns in the saddle and offers a puzzled glance as Lorn rides toward him. “Ser?”
“I’ll be riding with first squad this morning.”
“As you command, ser.”
The two ride silently and slowly as the line abreast forms and begins to ride parallel to and out from the ward-wall.
“Even it up, there!” Olisenn calls-more than once.
Lorn does not offer suggestions, or orders, but watches. Once the line is formed, and he and Olisenn ride on the opposite sides of the wall road, Lorn turns his attention to the ward-wall itself.
Although the wall looks the same as it always does, it is not. The relatively even pulses of chaos-if one can call any chaos energy regular-that are carried within the cupridium conduits and cast upwards in the net that restrains the Accursed Forest are different. While the chaos pulses are always different, always changing, usually each pulse does not differ greatly in power or duration. Lorn is not certain those are the right terms, but are closest to what he feels. This morning, there are larger pulses, much larger ones that feel shallower and some that feel like they are scarcely there at all.
After a time, he studies the road and the deadland pastOlisenn to his left, but there are no signs of shoots or seedling-or roots. Nor fallen trunks.
As the lancers ride, more slowly than ever, through the mud of the deadland, and as the morning passes, Lorn continues to watch, trying not to overstrain his eyes and senses, but knowing that all is not well somewhere along the wall. He also knows that to reveal that will leave him all too vulnerable in the seasons ahead. So he rides and watches. And the spring heat and hot dampness builds. While the discomfort rises, at least the deadland’s mud has become less viscous, and progress somewhat less laborious.
Sometime after midmorning, Lorn nods, finally seeing a line of darkness on the horizon, a line that should not be there.
“Have them watch more closely,” he finally tells Olisenn.
“Eyes sharp now, the captain says!” orders the senior squad leader. “Eyes sharp!”
“Ser! Trunk down! Trunk down!”
The line of blackness has become clear to all the lancers-a huge trunk jutting more than a hundred cubits out from the ward-wall-a trunk thicker at its uprooted base than the portion of the wall itself that is visible above ground.
Lorn glances at the nearest ward marker, then shakes his head. The closest engineer company is beyond the breach in the ward-wall, and to send a messenger past that without an escort would be foolhardy, considering the possible wildlife that the forest has had time to send forth. “Olisenn. Form up by duads on the road!”
“Ser?”
“On the road! A lancer won’t have much chance against a cat in this muck.”
The senior squad leader nods, then turns. “First squad! Duads on the road! Duads on the road!” Olisenn’s voice carries, and lancers guide their mounts toward the Lancer captain and the first squad leader.
“Send a messenger out to Kusyl,” Lorn adds. “Have him form up by duads on the perimeter road-and have the messenger stay clear of the trunk.” Lorn blots away the sweatthat has been gathering under the brow of his garrison cap.
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn lets the gelding carry him ahead of the reforming squad, his fingers brushing the firelance in its holder, reassuring himself that the weapon is fully charged. His eyes go to the ward-wall, and then his senses. While the chaos-net is still intact, its web is fragile, and, closer to the fallen trunk, that chaos will do little to halt whatever the Accursed Forest intends to cast across the wall that will become little more than mere granite in a kay or so.
“Vyon! Message to squad leader Kusyl. From the captain. They’re to form up by duads on the outer perimeter road and advance. They should be ready to repel creature attacks!”
“Yes, ser.”
As a second thought, Lorn also checks his sabre, then glances at the huge trunk once more. The closer the two squads draw to the massive trunk-a grayish brown wall so dark it is almost black-the more Lorn begins to understand deep within himself the concerns expressed by both Maran and Commander Meylyd about the Accursed Forest. The trunk dwarfs any fireship Lorn had seen and, were it upright, could shade the Palace of Light with fifty cubits to spare.
Small catlike animals are racing down the trunk, jumping clear even before they reach the twisted and crushed branches of the brilliant green crown. Some are already clear of the toppled foliage.
The fallen trunk towers above the ward-wall a good fifteen cubits, a dark wall stretching perpendicular to the ward-wall. Only the lowest course of the ward-wall’s granite is visible. Yet the granite of the wall appears to have held, except that it has cut into the trunk like an axe, and the trunk is firmly wedged in place. Then, Lorn reminds himself, under the fivecubit visible section of the wall is fifty cubits of granite foundation laid on solid rock, and reinforced with chaos bound in order.