“Yes, ser.” Muyro’s voice is level, but his face remains flushed in anger.
“That will do for this meeting.” Rynst rises. “Good day.”
Lorn rises, waits for the commanders to leave, then gathers his papers, and bows to the Majer-Commander before he turns to go. “By your leave, ser?”
“I saw your eyes, Majer. You were of the Magi’i. Know you of any such possible ways to better harness chaos?”
“I do not know how such might be accomplished today, ser. I do know that there were rumors of other ways of using chaos among the Magi’i, but I never became an adept, nor did I ever hear more than rumors as a student.” Every word Lorn says is true.
Rynst nods. “Perhaps Majer Muyro can find something. I have my doubts, but he will raise the question. Over time, even that will help.” The Majer-Commander laughs, once. “One hopes. You may go.”
Lorn is thankful that none of the commanders remain on the fifth-floor open foyer, and he hurries down to his own study, nodding to Fayrken as he passes.
“Another meeting report, ser?”
“Another report, Fayrken. This one will be short.”
“That be good, ser. Majer Hrenk has a long report about the piers at Fyrad.”
Lorn steps into his own study and sets his notes on the desk.
At the low roll of thunder, he turns to the window, where the first fat drops of rain strike the ancient panes-the large droplets hitting almost with the force of hail.
What can he do? It is clear from the indirect signs he sees that the Cyad he has known is changing. The merchanters are having trouble trading against the outlanders and want lower tariffs. The barbarians will threaten again, unless action is taken. The Emperor is failing, perhaps dying. The Magi’i are not changing, nor do the Mirror Lancers-except for perhaps Commander Shykt and the Majer-Commander-wish to offer anything new to the Emperor or the others who advise Toziel.
He has to do something, but what he can do is little enough…for now. He stands in his small study, a floor below the Majer-Commander, feeling that he could do more. Yet his father advised against approaching the Emperor. Even if he goes against his father’s wishes, he has no way to gain access to the Palace of Eternal Light-except as an intruder, and that is not exactly to his benefit.
Equally dangerous is the implication that there are reasons why the Magi’i have not offered another way to use chaos to replace the fireships and firewagons. Now it is clear that he must study his father’s papers once more, even more carefully, to see how he might advance the plans and suggestions contained therein. The papers offer solutions, yet his father could not advance them, even as Hand of the Emperor. Is there any way Lorn can?
He looks at the stack of notes and takes a deep breath, then pulls out the chair and seats himself. First, he must write the report of the meeting.
CXIV
Once in his dwelling study, Lorn sets the box from his father on his desk and leafs through the stack of papers, his fingers fumbling as he scans the sheets, looking for a section he has read several times, hoping that the section says what he has recalled.
“What are you doing?” asks Ryalth from the doorway, juggling Kerial on her shoulder. “You didn’t even try to find me. I was bathing Kerial. He’d spit up and made a mess.”
Lorn lowers the papers. “I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about this all afternoon. We had a meeting today. Maybe I have an answer. These papers. You remember we talked about the engines-the iron chaos-heat-transfer steam engines-they talked about it…” Lorn finds his words trying to tumble out faster than he can think about them.
Ryalth laughs. “Wait…the papers will be there in a moment. I’ve never seen you trying to talk so fast.”
Lorn takes a deep breath. “You remember we talked about why no one had tried to build the chaos-fired steamships? Why no one ever talked about them? At the meeting today, Commander Shykt asked a strange question. The others thought it was strange. He asked whether the Magi’i could use chaos to build a better warship or weapons. He wasn’t that direct, but that was what he was hinting at…”
“Do you think he knows?”
“No. He knows something else. What he understands is that the Magi’i don’t want to do things that might limit their power.”
“That’s hardly strange. No one does. Traders don’t do trades that will cost them more than they make.”
“There’s a difference,” Lorn points out. “Cyador will become far poorer, perhaps even fall to the barbarians, if the Magi’i do not use their powers. Shykt was suggesting that they would rather see Cyador fall than use their powers in a new way.”
Ryalth laughs, still patting Kerial on the back, but the sound is ironic. “You are remarkable. You were thrown out of the Magi’i because you would not put their ways above everything. You are surprised that they will not change?”
Lorn shakes his head. “I had hoped for better.”
“Your father tried to make things better in his own way, and he was powerful. He could not even keep you in the Magi’i.”
“Not safely,” Lorn admits. “When you put it that way…Still, it is hard to believe that they would let the land die.” He crooks his lips. “I should know better. It took the First Magus years, from all accounts, to get the Magi’i to agree to his plan for the Accursed Forest, and they only agreed to that when it was clear that nothing else would work and that they would lose those towers anyway.”
“What did your father say?”
“That was what I was looking for.”
“You look, and I’ll tell Kysia to ready dinner. Then you can tell me. I think Kerial is going to go to sleep.”
“I hope so.” Lorn smiles.
The redhead shakes her head again, ruefully and lovingly.
As Ryalth leaves the small upstairs study, Lorn returns to paging through the sheets in the old carved wooden box, slowly and more methodically, forcing himself to read at least enough of each page to ensure that it does not deal with the material he seeks.
Roughly a third of the way through the material he stops.
As it is described on the pages which follow, once the chaos-towers fail, all is not lost. Those senior in the Magi’i will claim that no other devices, such as chaos-steam transfer engines, can be constructed, because iron and chaos are not compatible. Too great a closeness between iron, order, and Magi’i is not desirable, but it is not necessary….
…to fabricate such a device requires the extraction of order from the natural world, and its infusion into the iron as it is being forged. When I was young, I worked with a smith. He is long since dead, and he knew little beyond what his forebears had taught him, and yet we did indeed forge a blade out of iron-darker than most, and of inordinate strength.
I could not touch the blade, not without suffering ferric poisoning, but there was no need to do so…
Lorn continues to read, nodding as he does.
The First Magus-the one two before Chyenfel-did not wish to consider such a means of finding an alternative to the chaos-towers, for none of the chaos-towers had failed, and there was seen no need to do such. He was also concerned about use of such a method when it could be used to forge blades and shields that might well prove a useful shield against chaos-bolts. Once the method was used, he said, all the barbarians would learn, and then Cyador would have defenses far less effective against the northerners.
Now…the towers are failing, and so am I. Perhaps worse, because I once looked into the matter, the reference material was removed from the archives of the Quarter and burned. Most of it I had copied previously, and that is what follows this explanation…