Magi'i of Cyador

XCIII

AS THE WHITE gelding carries him southeast along the road beside the white granite of the ward-wall, Lorn wipes the cold drizzle off his forehead. Sweat continues to ooze from under the garrison cap to mix with the fine rain. Without the oiled white leather winter jacket, he would be soaked, but cold as it had been when they had left Jakaafra, he had chosen the warmer jacket over a waterproof. The weather has warmed somewhat, and under the jacket, even unfastened as it is, he is too warm.

No lancer can carry enough for all types of weather, not and be able to fight giant cats-not and carry two firelances and two sabres.

“Far too wet and cold not to wear a jacket,” Shynt observes from where he rides on the outer side of the ward-wallroad, echoing Lorn’s feelings, “and too warm to wear such.”

Lorn shakes his head. “And it’s not really wet enough for this to help crops much, and too damp for healthy riding. No one really benefits. Some patrols are like that.”

“Most … in the winter.”

The lancer captain nods in agreement, then glances ahead. Through the mid-day drizzle, the white granite oblong bulk of the structure housing the non-functioning midpoint chaos tower looms ahead and slightly to the left of the ward-wall road. Before long, the first squad will have to ride around the mid-point tower, and then, somewhere beyond that, farther southeast, they will find another fallen tree.

It has been almost two eightdays and two complete patrol circuits since he sent off his fateful scroll to Ryalth, and he has heard nothing, but still he must deal with patrols and trees and escaped creatures. Then, he reminds himself, it is still early for her response. He turns back to study the wall. His eyes and senses check the chaos-net and the increasingly irregular pulses of the chaos flows confirm to him that another tree has fallen across the white granite barrier-several kays to the southeast of the midpoint tower. The irregularity of the chaos-greater irregularity, he corrects himself, for chaos flows are never regular-remind him again that he pursues a dangerous path … as his father had suggested more than once.

Yet, being who he is, what other can he do? Other than smile and make provisions.

Smile? The ancient words, in their slanted characters, run through his mind.

Smiles … images on the pond of being, reflections only made possible by the black depths beneath.

Black depths-he has black depths. That he knows as he pushes the words away. He knows, too, that what he must do in dealing with the fallen tree ahead-riding alone as a target-will work, and that no wild creatures are likely to escape. He also knows that if too many more patrol reports show neither casualties nor escaped animals, it will not bethat long before Majer Maran returns to Jakaafra with another chore in mind-one for which Lorn is not certain he is fully prepared.

Provisions must be made … and I have made them.

But are they enough? That … he will never know, unless he fails, and then it will be too late. With a faint smile, Lorn leans forward slightly in the saddle and runs the fingertips of his right hand over the two firelances, one after the other. Both are fully charged. Then he straightens up and studies the ward-wall to his right once more, trying to guess how many kays they will ride before a lancer will spot the fallen Forest tree, how many kays before he will have to use concealed chaos once more, because a magus-born lancer cannot be suffered to be successful.