“Yes, ser.”
“That is all, Majer. I expect a copy of the report on the latest fireship replacement meeting by midmorning tomorrow.”
“Yes, ser.” Lorn stands.
Rynst does not seem to look up as Lorn departs the study.
As Lorn descends the stairs to his study, he considers what Rynst has said. Everything that the Majer-Commander has relayed makes sense, far too much sense, in some ways. One thing does not. That is why Rynst has told Lorn before any decision is made, and why Lorn has been told when a decision will be made.
Lorn fears he understands that, as well. Rynst wants the lancers used-somehow-before they must leave Cyad. Yet the Majer-Commander cannot order such, or will not, and if they are used, he will not be the one to give the order-unless there is a danger obvious to all.
CXLVIII
In the late evening, with but a single lamp lit, Lorn sits at the study desk, squinting at the chaos-glass, and drawing out the rooms in Tasjan’s dwelling on sheets of paper beside the glass. With each image, he draws what he needs to know, then checks what he has drawn, and finally lets the image fade. Then he closes his eyes and rubs his neck before he calls forth the next image from the glass.
The lower levels of Tasjan’s dwelling have no windows that are not barred, and all the doors are iron-bound, bolted, and guarded at all times. The outside guards, and those that patrol the gardens and porticoes, wear green. Those inside wear blue.
Lorn looks at what he has drawn, shifting from sheet to sheet.
Tasjan’s private study opens onto a balcony, and that balcony can be reached easily enough by climbing up a stepped chimney from the secondlevel portico. There are two guard posts along the portico flanking the upper gardens, but if the guards see no one…
All Lorn has to do is figure out how to get to the second-level portico.
With a deep breath, he looks down at the glass yet another time.
A dozen or more glimpses of Tasjan’s dwelling, and he thinks he has a way. If he can climb a particular tree. If he can hold his blur shield long enough. If it works.
He shakes his head and puts away the glass, ignoring the burning in his eyes, and the headache that seems as though someone is trying to cleave his skull with a very dull and heavy ax. Then he turns down the wick and puts out the single lamp in the study.
He walks quietly along the upper corridor to the bedchamber, where he slides the iron bolt shut.
“You were using the glass late,” Ryalth says sleepily.
“Later than I would have liked. I was studying Tasjan’s dwelling and how he enters and leaves it.” Lorn sits on the end of the bed and pulls off his boots, then stands and begins to disrobe.
“Will you check Kerial?” she murmurs.
“I will.” After he pulls off his undertunic, he steps to the small bed and glances down, listening as much as looking. The small figure breathes evenly, regularly. Lorn smiles and steps away to hang his clothes in the armoire, then returns and slides under the covers next to his sleepy redhead.
“He’s fine.”
“Good.” She snuggles against him and seems to relax.
Lorn slips one arm around her, enjoying her closeness. But he stares through the darkness, and it is some time before he finally drops into sleep.
CXLIX
In the late afternoon, almost upon returning from Mirror Lancer Court, Lorn pulls the merchanter blues-those normally worn by a senior enumerator-from the back of the armoire. Then come the blue boots, stiff, but usable.
“It might yet be wiser to wait,” Ryalth says from the doorway, before stepping into the bedchamber.
“No…it would be safer for me to wait, but what if Tasjan does not dine at Ayadar next eightday…or the eightday after, then what? Rynst has indicated that, in no more than three eightdays, they will decide when the Mirror Lancers will leave Cyad, and that it is likely to be immediately. Then who will oppose Tasjan and the greensuits? If I wait until then, there will be no lancers, and then how could I oppose Tasjan, knowing that Sasyk would leave even more blood across all the sunstones?”
“So you will act sooner, rather than later, for fewer will suspect you now?”
“Most expect less action before decisions are made-especially in Cyad, where acting wrongly and early can be most dangerous.” Lorn offers a crooked smile.
Ryalth nods. “How will you do this?”
“With the blurring shield I showed you.” Lorn sits on the edge of the bed and pulls off his white lancer boots. “And some tree-climbing…”
“Will he not sense it?”
“I think not. That is why only the upper-level adepts are taught such, because it is an aversion, not the use of order to bend the chaos of light away from one. Use of much order or chaos creates a disruption that any sensitive to chaos or order may sense. This uses less chaos than that from the sun during the heat of the day.”
Ryalth frowns. “Will you wait until it is full dark?”
“No. I leave shortly-in merchanter blue.” He smiles. “These Jerial had made for me years ago still fit well enough.” The cream-and-green uniform comes off next, to be hung in the armoire, and Lorn pulls on the blue trousers, then the tunic.
“You would have the merchanters torn by strife?”
“They already are,” Lorn points out dryly as he sits to pull on the blue leather boots. “Tasjan is trying to overthrow Vyanat. Blouyal was using his position to gain unfair advantage for his house. Vyel wanted to kill you to take over Ryalor House. I suspect other problems have occurred with Kysan House, from what you have said, and Denys, you said, schemes to redeem Bluyet House.” He pauses. “My plan is to have it clear that one of Sasyk’s guards murdered Tasjan. I do not want the cream-and-green seen near Tasjan’s.”
“See that you do that.” She nods slowly. “Still…I do not like that you must act so quickly.”
“I like it not that I should have to act at all. Yet…I can sense far more is taking place than I know.”
“That is always so,” Ryalth responds.
Lorn holds a frown. She is not telling all she knows. “What else should I know?”
Ryalth shrugs, almost helplessly. “I fear that Sasyk holds more power in the Dyjani House than any realize, but that I do not know. Like you, I can feel currents beneath the surface of a harbor that seems calm. Yet I can see nothing.”
“As can I. And if we wait until we can…”
“Then it may be too late,” Ryalth concludes.
Lorn nods, then stands. “Best I be going.” He fastens the Brystan sabre to his blue belt. While most enumerators do not wear blades, some do, and there is no standard for what type of blade they wear, save that it can be worn off a belt.
“Be most careful, my love.”
“I intend such. Since I will not follow Alyiakal…I must be most careful so that you can support me when I am stipended off as an old, old majer.”
“Were it to happen so, that would be only fair. You have made possible all that is Ryalor House.” She smiles, then leans forward and embraces him, brushing his cheek with her lips. “Be most careful.”
“I will.”
They walk down the stairs and out onto the veranda. With a single backward glance, Lorn walks from the veranda, past the fountain, and out the gate, locking it behind him. His blues should not be remarked, for most know that the dwelling belongs to a trader.
In the twilight, Lorn walks westward down the lane and then up the Fifth Harbor Way. At the next corner, he turns westward once more until he reaches the Eighth Harbor Way, although, like all ways and roads outside of the central trading quarter of Cyad, it is unmarked.
Tasjan’s dwelling occupies a small block of its own, and at the first level, the building walls are blank stone and offer no windows or entrance except for the carriage gate and a service door, and both are guarded inside and out. There are no other guards outside the dwelling. The tall trees-Lorn has no idea what they are-grow outside the walls and arch over the upper-level porticos. They are still shedding second-year leaves and turning the first-year leaves gray for winter, but all those on the main ways have been trimmed of lower branches.