Magi'i of Cyador

CVI

IN THE MID-AFTERNOON gloom, Lorn sits at the narrow desk in his study, reading over the last lines of his patrol report, before he begins the summary report that will go to Majer Maran. Outside, the heavy rain that began the day before on the final day of patrol continues to beat down on the tile roofs of the compound and to run in sheets across the slightly slanted stone pavement of the courtyard, pouring into the drainage canal leading westward.

The lancer captain massages his forehead with his left hand, closing his eyes for a moment, listening to the drumbeat of the rain, rain that usually seems to provide headaches.

Ryalth has returned to Cyad, and Lorn has completed one complete patrol, surprisingly without a tree-fall or another excursion from the Accursed Forest. Those will come. That he knows, but he hopes that he will have some time, for he has yet to decide how he will handle what must come from Maran, if not by spring, then later.

Thrap. The knock on the study door is gentle.

“Yes?”

Kusyl opens the door and peers inside. “Ah … ser … the engineers brought the replacement firelances.”

Lorn beckons for the squad leader to come in.

Kusyl does and closes the door behind him.

“They’re not fully charged, or there aren’t enough?” Lorn suggests.

“Just a score and a half, ser. If Frynyl hadn’t run for the north, well, ser …”

“I know. There wouldn’t even be one for me. I could have borrowed one from Juist, but only one. He generally has a few extras, and they don’t discharge theirs as rapidly as we do.” Lorn smiles. “I appreciate your telling me. It won’t change anything.” He glances toward the window. “I just hope the rain lets up soon.”

“Not quite so heavy as earlier, ser.” Kusyl bobs his head. “There be anything you want, ser?”

“No, thank you.”

Once Kusyl leaves, Lorn looks out at the still-falling rain. He shakes his head sadly. Maran has made Lorn’s decision for him, although Lorn doubts Maran will understand the reasons for that decision. The captain fingers his chin. In a way, Ciesrt has also helped to make Lorn’s decision, and his sister’s consort would not understand either.

Lorn takes out another sheet of report paper and begins drafting the summary report to Majer Maran. Since nothing occurred, it is short, and before long, Lorn has handed it to Kusyl for dispatch.

Then he crosses the courtyard to his quarters quickly, but Kusyl is right, for the rain has diminished to a fraction of its former intensity.

He bolts the door behind himself, pacing around the small room, thinking. After a time, he recovers and opens the silver-covered book, searching for a poem that may reflect his conflicting emotions, either his sense of loss at Ryalth’s absence … perhaps his growing understanding of how fortunate he has been to have found and held her or his anger at Maran’s smallness. He passes by page after page of verse, feeling the weight of melancholy, until he pauses, caught by an image, though it is not what he has sought.

He reads the words slowly, and aloud, for the combination of the subtle strangeness and the angular characters always suggests restraint.

An ornamented garden, filled with flowers,

statues surrounding lovers’ bowers,

these we will not find in granite walls,

nor in the heights of Palace halls,

vain images of a world long lost in space

that none can bear to view or to replace.

Love you I will these last days we hold,

loving till we are ash and order cold,

for ancient images are not for keeping,

nor Palace walls and second falls for weeping.

He frowns, wondering again who the writer might have been. Then he shakes his head, looking for something slightly less melancholy, but the best he can find is the first stanza of another verse.

Virtues of old hold fast.

Morning’s blaze cannot last;

and rose petals soon part.

Not so a steadfast heart.

“Not so a steadfast heart …” he murmurs to himself. Is his heart that steadfast? He shakes his head and turns to the lines about pears, recalling Ryalth’s voice as she had read the words on a chill morning that had been warmer than most he has known.

Then, only then, he slowly closes the book. Ryalth had asked him so long ago what he knew of the ancients. He still does not know, only that they had somehow seen an age end, a life end, and it had colored everything written in the small, seemingly eternal, silver-covered volume he holds.