Magi'i of Cyador

XX

AFTER HAVING SELECTED a mount, and getting a tour of the rest of the Mirror Lancer compound from Nytral, Lorn finds himself yawning more and more as they walk back from the armory, a heavy-walled and squat building located inside another set of walls in the northwest corner of the compound. Lorn’s boots are scuffing the stone as well.

“Ser … begging your pardon, but best you get some sleep afore you eat with the senior officers tonight.” Nytral glances at Lorn.

“Because they’ll be sizing up the new undercaptain? You’re probably right, and there’s not too much more I can do until tomorrow anyway.” Lorn yawns again. “I’ll see you in the morning, and we can go over the supplies and everything.”

“Yes, ser.”

Lorn turns and walks back to the quarters building, and up two long flights of steps. His room is stark-one narrow pallet bed, a small table by the bed with an oil lamp, a single armless wooden chair, and a set of wooden pegs on the wallfor hanging uniforms. The single window bears ancient glass, and the shutters are inside the casement.

After slipping the latch bar in place behind him, Lorn levers off his boots and strips to his small clothes. By then he is struggling to keep his eyes open.

Despite his fatigue, Lorn wakes in mid-afternoon, in a chill. As he was sleeping, someone had been screeing him, and it had not been his father. But why? To see that he was indeed where he had been sent?

He rolls upright and rubs his eyes. Since he is awake, he rises and then uses the cold shower in the semi-communal bathing chamber in the middle of the uppermost floor. After drying and dressing in a clean set of lancer whites, he heads back to the outpost support building where some discreet inquiries of Chorin locate the officer’s laundry service, set, obviously, in the rear of the ground floor level of the quarters building.

Lorn returns to his room and carries his soiled whites down to the small room where a gray-haired and bare-footed woman in gray stands over a wash tub, swirling the wash with a wooden paddle. A second thigh-high tub stands to her right. The odors of warmish water and soap fill the barewalled space.

Lorn waits, but the woman does not turn in his direction. Finally, he clears his throat.

She looks up, then steps toward him. “Ser … ser … those I cannot wash until tomorrow.”

“That’s fine.”

“A copper for each uniform, you know.”

Lorn nods. “There is just one.”

She bobs her head and takes the uniform. “Tomorrow night.”

“Thank you.” Even before he finishes his words, the washerwoman has set his whites on a table by the tub and is back at work with the wooden paddle. He steps outside, into a gentle, but unseasonably warm breeze for winter in Syadtar-that is what he feels. He checks the white garrison cap, although the breeze is scarcely strong enough to worry about.

There is time before dinner. So he walks around the compound, studying more carefully what Nytral had shown him earlier. Under grayish-green tiled roofs, the buildings are of clean-lined granite and sunstone, the granite for the main walls, and the sunstone for the minimal trim and arches. Both types of stone have been bleached out by time and the residual impact of the chaos-chisel cutting used to shape the stone blocks. With the late afternoon sun glinting on the windows of Thiataphi’s headquarters, Lorn can see that some of the window panes are clearer than others, by the reflection of both light and the chaos within the sunlight. The window casements are all of stained and weathered white oak, but barely visible, since all the shutters in the compound are inside the windows.

The outpost building, although old, has been added to the compound later.

Lorn smiles as Chorin hurries out the door and scurries toward Thiataphi’s headquarters.

“ … two, three …”

At the sound of cadence-calling, Lorn turns to watch a line of men in white marching along the west wall of the compound, just outside the shade.

“ … have to march before you ride … two, three … keep the chaos on your side … two, three …” calls a burly squad leader, breaking the cadence to add, “You’re not tough, and the barbarians will eat you like honeycakes … pick it up in the rear!”

Hoofs clatter on the stones, and a Mirror Lancer in white, wearing the red sash of a messenger, rides up to the hitching post outside Thiataphi’s headquarters, dismounts, hurriedly ties his mount, and rushes inside carrying a white leather dispatch pouch.

As Chorin eases out through the stone archway, the Lancer clerk’s head turns as if he is trying to hear what the messenger might be saying or what he brought.

Lorn smiles, watching.

When Chorin sees Lorn, he begins to walk quickly backto the outpost building, without looking back at the junior officer.

At the sound of the fifth bell of afternoon, Lorn turns back toward the quarters building. By the time he reaches the dining area, a small hall with a table long enough for a score and a half, and folds his garrison cap and tucks it in his belt, there are already a number of officers gathering within the sunstone finished room. The fireplace behind the head of the table is dark, and the walls are bare, except for a series of miniature mirror shields on the north wall, each with a design color-etched into the polished cupridium. The cupridium catches the indirect early evening light coming through the windows on the south wall, enough so that light plays across the shields.

From the rank insignia he can see, he is the only undercaptain, with six captains, two overcaptains, one sub-majer, and one majer standing at places around the table, and with the gray-haired Commander Thiataphi himself at the head of the table.

As the other officers seat themselves, Lorn watches, then moves so that he is at the very foot of the table on the left side.

Each place has a brown platter and a heavy glass wine goblet-glass, not crystal nor metal. The servers are lancers, but each wears a green overtunic. On the serving platter first presented to the commander are slices of beef, covered with a brown sauce. The second platter is heaped with yellow noodles, and four large baskets of dark bread are set at intervals along the table. Then comes a deeper dish filled with something green.

Lorn waits and takes as much as he dares of the beef, noodles, bread, and ackar, a bitter leafy vegetable he had seen far too much of as a boy. The server fills his goblet with a maroon wine.

Commander Thiataphi lifts his goblet, and the other officers begin to eat. Lorn follows their example, listening to their conversation as he does.

“White mounts handle the sun better … chaos-colored, you know, and the white reflects better ….”

“ … darker coats shield them better …”

“ … so why do the chestnuts breathe harder and lather earlier?”

“ … got you there, Helkar …”

“ … doesn’t matter now … not in winter …”

Lorn takes a bite of the overcooked beef, following it with a mouthful of equally overcooked noodles. The wine, while a plain red, is far better than either the beef or the noodles, but Lorn eats everything on the chipped brown platter before him, then waits for the senior officers to finish and take any second helpings.

“ … scouts say the Jeranyi are gathering the eastern tribes, the ones north of the cupric mines.”

“Some of them have started carrying polished iron shields-work almost as well as a mirror shield against the fire lances … with those iron-headed arrows …”

“Their bows aren’t that good, not from the saddle.”

“Yet …”

“Ought to go in and take the iron mines …”

“You want to get ferric poisoning … be my guest, Helkar. Besides, none of the barbarians work metal that well.”

“You don’t get it from the ore … only after it’s smelted and turned into weapons … Rather take out the mines than risk getting ferric poisoning and order death.”

Lorn keeps a polite smile on his face when he isn’t eating, taking in the attitudes of the lancers, partly amazed at some of the misconceptions that seem common, even among officers.

The serving dishes, after being refilled by the lancer servers, make their way down to Lorn, who takes additional slices of beef and a pile of the gravied noodles. He has eaten two mouthfuls of his seconds, then stops to break off a chunk of the moist brown bread.

“Undercaptain? Lorn’alt, is it not?” calls Commander Thiataphi.

Lorn swallows quickly. “Yes, ser.”

“You’re from Cyad, are you not?”

“Yes, ser.”

“How do you find the north?” asks the commander.

“Warmer than I would have thought in winter, ser.” Lorn offers a polite smile.

“That’s why the barbarians want our lands. One reason, anyway. On the other side of the Grass Hills, there’s snow. Or there was last eightday, according to the report from Sub-Majer Brevyl. Don’t forget to draw a winter jacket, and winter boots.”

“No, ser. I won’t.” Lorn hasn’t thought about either, and hopes his face does not show his ignorance.

“You from a lancer family?”

“No, ser.” Lorn decides against volunteering his background.

“That’s right,” Thiataphi says with a guffaw. “You’re one of the magus-born who’s good with a blade.” He shakes his head. “Do some of the Magi’i good to get out on the borderlands, see what the barbarians are doing.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, Lorn nods politely.

“You’ll see. Sub-Majer Brevyl will ensure you do. Just like he did with all the others here. Except me, and I made sure he saw just what they were.” The darkness in the commander’s words is scarcely concealed.

Lorn manages to finish the second helping on his chipped platter just before the servers clear the platters, and replace them with smaller plates, each bearing a rolled and fried paelunka that has been dipped in condensed sweetsap. He continues to listen as the conversation drifts away from him.

“ … all that snow to the north … grass’ll be green early, and that means more raids.”

“If it ever melts …”

“ … doesn’t melt early, stay green longer, and the raids’ll start later and last longer, either way, we need to draw more trainees.”

“ … could be right about that … need more undercaptains, too …”

Lorn finishes his paelunka and sips the wine, very slowly, listening.

Abruptly, Thiataphi rises, and so do the other officers. Even though caught unaware, Lorn rises with them.

One of the captains draws up to Lorn as they leave the officer’s dining hall.

“I’m Helkar, the one they’re always telling that I’m wrong.”

“Lorn.”

“I noticed you didn’t say much about ferric poisoning, but you have to know something about it, don’t you, if you were a magus.”

“I know something about it,” Lorn admits.

“Was I right about it? That it’s got to be used in a weapon?

“Mostly.” Lorn pauses. “And you have to have been using firelances, and directing them for a long time. Otherwise, you’ll probably only get a burn in addition to a slash or a cut.”

“Why do the Magi’i warn us so much? Bums, those I can handle.”

“The Magi’i handle more chaos than firelances, much more.”

“Ah …” Helkar frowns. “You’ll have to worry more about iron then?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Good.” Helkar laughs. “You’ll have enough to worry about with Brevyl anyway.”

“Is he that hard?”

“Is cupridium tough? Does a firelance burn?” The captain shakes his head. “He’s fair, but best you do as he orders, or you’ll find yourself leading a half-score of troublemakers who don’t know one end of a lance from the other against four score raiders.” Helkar laughs. “And if you make it through that, he’ll decide you’re the one to train and lash all the troublemakers in the whole outfit into formation.”

Lorn nods, stifling a yawn. He is still tired from three days’ travel in firewagons and wonders if one good night’ssleep will be enough to recover. “Is this your duty assignment now?”

“Me? Working for Commander Thiataphi? Not likely. I’m here like you, picking up replacement lancers, except I’m headed back to Pemedra tomorrow. A few less barbarians there, and a lot more snow. You can see the Westhorns from there, and that wind comes off them in winter, and it’ll cut right through you.”

“How many lancers are you taking back?”

“Four score, with two squad leaders.” Helkar shrugs.

“Takes near-on four days, and there’s always a chance of a raiding party, but it’s less early in the winter. The barbarians get bored or run out of food before spring, and they’ll start raiding while there’s still snow everywhere.” Another laugh follows. “Trailing them through snow and mud, we all enjoy that.”

Lorn nods.

“You look order-dead.” Helkar half-thumps Lorn’s shoulders and turns. “Good luck with Sub-Majer Brevyl.”

“Thank you.” Lorn walks slowly up the two flights of stone steps, concentrating so that his white boots do not scuff and so that he does not trip. A night’s sleep will be good. Very good.