A single senior squad leader sits behind a golden-oak table desk on a sunstone dais in the middle of the foyer, flanked by two Mirror Lancers in spotless cream uniforms, each with a sabre and a short firelance.
Lorn steps forward.
The squad leader glances at Lorn’s insignia. “Ser?”
“Sub-Majer Lorn. I have orders to report to the Majer-Commander personally.” Lorn extends the scroll.
The squad leader takes the scroll and reads. His eyes linger on the last lines and the signature. “Yes, ser. It’s rather unusual. His study is on the fifth floor. You will need to present your orders to him. Ah…that is, squad leader Tygyl will present them.”
Lorn smiles as he takes back the order roll. “I understand. The steps there?” He inclines his head to the wide steps at the back of the foyer.
“Yes, ser.”
Lorn lifts his bags. He had debated leaving the bags with Ryalth, but that would have made it clear that he had not come directly to the Mirror Lancer Court.
The sub-majer crosses the foyer and walks through the square arch to begin ascending the steps, which rise a half-flight to a landing. From each end of the landing, another set rises a half-flight to the next floor. The pattern continues for four flights. Lorn pauses at each landing and takes several deep breaths. He scarcely wants to arrive at the Majer-Commander’s study panting and puffing, although he expects he will be waiting for a while.
At the open space of the topmost floor, there is another senior squad leader seated behind yet another golden-oak table desk. There are three doorways from the foyerlike space-one to the right, one to the left, and one directly behind the squad. The doorways to the left and right are closed and each guarded by a pair of Mirror Lancers, again with sabres and the short firelances. The double doors behind the table desk are open and unguarded.
Lorn steps forward and extends the order scroll. “Sub-Majer Lorn. As ordered, I am reporting personally to the Majer-Commander.” As an afterthought, he also extends the hand with the Mirror Lancer seal ring.
“Yes, ser. They’ve been expecting you.” The squad leader studies Lorn for the briefest of moments. “You came directly, I see.”
“As directly as I could,” Lorn says.
“The Captain-Commander will see you first, and then the Majer-Commander.” The staffer turns in his chair and gestures toward the open doors behind him. “If you would wait in the anteroom there…? There is water and some fruit and cheese there, if you haven’t had a chance to eat recently. And, ser…I’ll be giving your orders to the Majer-Commander.”
“Thank you.” Lorn inclines his head.
“Not at all, ser.” The senior squad leader rises and walks toward the door to the left-on the north side of the open foyer.
Lorn lifts the bags and walks toward the receiving area. The room beyond the double doors is small, no more than ten cubits by fifteen, with a settee against the oak-paneled wall opposite the doors. The settee is flanked by two narrow and open windows. Set out from the settee and at right angles are two wooden armchairs, each with a green cushion. Against the wall at the right end of the room is a golden-oak sideboard with several trays upon it.
Lorn sets his bags beside the wooden chair closest to the door, and makes his way to the sideboard, where he pours water from the crystal carafe into a matching crystal mug. He studies the water and the trays of bread crackers and cheese, and the fruit bowl with his chaos-senses, but can detect nothing untoward. He lifts the mug and drains it almost immediately. After refilling the mug, he then takes several hard crackers and a drying wedge of cheese, and eats them. He will need his senses about him, and it has been awhile since he has eaten. He takes a second round of crackers and cheese, and finishes those.
“Ser?”
Lorn turns.
“The Majer-Commander has requested that you meet with the Captain-Commander first.” The squad leader gestures toward Lorn’s gear. “You can leave those there.”
“Thank you.” Lorn stops by the bag and extracts a rolled bundle before he follows the staffer out of the receiving area and toward the door on the south side of the foyer.
The squad leader opens it for Lorn, but does not enter.
Lorn steps into the study, a space roughly fifteen cubits wide and thirty long. To his right is an oblong table, with eight armless chairs. The entire wall on the right side of the room is comprised of golden-oak bookshelves, and most of the shelves are filled with volumes. Lorn conceals his interest as he catches sight of several shimmering silver book spines.
The left wall is mostly of narrow windows, although but two are open. The south end of the room contains a wide and polished table desk, set before two wide widows that overlook the south end of Cyad. The man who stands behind the table desk has black hair and bushy black eyebrows and wears a silver sunburst crossed by a sabre on the collar of his cream-and-green uniform.
Lorn bows. “Captain-Commander.”
“Sub-Majer Lorn. It’s good to see you.” Captain-Commander Luss gestures to the chairs before his table desk, waiting a moment before reseating himself.
Lorn steps forward, past the conference table, and takes the chair on the right side. He does not offer the rolled scrolls, keeping them loosely in his left hand.
The Captain-Commander looks full at Lorn and smiles. “You do not look half so deadly as the legends which already surround you.”
“Legends are made by those with other goals, I fear, ser,” Lorn says smoothly. “I have always served Cyad and the Mirror Lancers.”
“Indeed you have, and that is something that all too many of your commanders seem to have forgotten.” Luss’s smile fades into a faint professional shadow of the one which welcomed Lorn. “The problem the Majer-Commander faces is that all senior officers feel that they serve Cyad and the Mirror Lancers…if you understand what I mean.”
“You suggest, ser,” Lorn says slowly, “that there are as many visions of the Mirror Lancers as there are senior officers.”
“Not quite that many,” Luss says with a laugh. “Not near that many…but enough.”
“Which vision do you and the Majer-Commander serve? It would be best that I know that if I am to carry out my duties.”
Luss laughs again. “Were it that simple. Were it that simple.”
Lorn waits, knowing that Luss is watching for a commitment of sorts.
After a time, Luss begins to speak, deliberately. “You have been most diligent in reporting your actions, from the time you first served at Isahl. I have reviewed those reports. You have always reported clearly, and so far as any can tell, with great accuracy. Your reports from Biehl showed even greater detail and accuracy. Yet there were no reports from Inividra until the last report that you wrote for Commander Ikynd. You did write that report, did you not?” Luss lifts his eyebrows.
“I wrote a number of reports while I was commanding at Inividra. As commanded, I sent them all to Majer Dettaur. There were no reports in the files at Assyadt when I reported there after the Jeran campaign.” Lorn shrugs. “I had suggested that duplicates be sent from Inividra to Assyadt, but I was detached, so that I have no idea if that was carried out.”
“You suggest that Majer Dettaur destroyed such reports.”
“Ser…I have no idea what occurred. I can only say that the reports I sent were not in the records chests at Assyadt. I know the reports were written and delivered. Beyond that, only Commander Ikynd and Majer Dettaur would know.”
“You killed Majer Dettaur.”
“He attacked me without warning or reason. I defended myself. I imagine, although one can only surmise, that he feared that my presence would reveal that he had been distorting the records of my actions and that he would be disgraced.”
“Yet, you merely reported that he had died in the line of duty,” Luss says.