Scion of Cyador

CXVI

“Enough…That’s more than enough.” Tyrsal puffs out the words, backing out of the roughened stone of the sparring circle.

“That’s fine. I didn’t get that much sleep last night. Kerial is teething.”

“You couldn’t…?” asks Tyrsal.

“I know enough about healing, but Jerial says it’s not good to use it on infants for normal things like teething-something about upsetting their chaos-order balance too early. It’s different if they’re really ill.” Lorn takes a deep breath and blots his forehead on the back of the sleeve of the exercise tunic.

“You’re doing it all without vision, aren’t you? The sabre? No matter which hand you have the blade in?”

“Most of the time,” Lorn admits.

“Ha! I thought so.”

“You’re getting better,” Lorn points out. “I have to work harder these days.”

“I have to, sparring with you.”

“So do I, working against you.” Lorn places the practice sabre in the rack. “You must have something on your mind.” He smiles. “A certain young lady, perchance?”

“Aleyar does occupy my thoughts-more than I’d ever thought.” Tyrsal lowers his voice, his eyes going to the pair of merchanters sparring in the background. “Why don’t you walk partway back toward the Quarter with me?”

Lorn nods. “All right. Then I’d better get washed up quickly. I do have to finish another meeting report.”

The two walk toward the shower room adjoining the exercise hall. Lorn washes quickly, but Tyrsal is quicker yet, and waiting as Lorn finishes smoothing his tunic in place and clipping his cupridium-plated Brystan sabre to his green web belt. He feels safer with that particular sabre, especially in Cyad, and the cupridium shields the ordered iron beneath…enough so that only a very accomplished magus who is very close to Lorn would even have a chance of noting it, for order is far less obvious than chaos.

Lorn’s hair is still wet as they walk along the paved walkway beside the road of Perpetual Light in the warm early-fall afternoon. He looks at the shorter, redheaded mage. “You have that worried look. Is it about being consorted?”

“Chaos, no!” Tyrsal takes a deep breath, then glances over his shoulder, then lowers his voice. “Last night…Mother had asked if I would drop by. She asks so seldom that I hired a coach.”

Lorn nods.

“She had a message for you.”

“For me?” The taller man frowns.

“She wouldn’t tell me where it came from, and begged me not to ask. She did say that the person who sent it had never lied, and about that she was telling the truth.”

Lorn feels his stomach churning, and a chill coming down his back, and a chill from premonition, not from being watched in a chaos-glass, although he has experienced more of that in the last few eightdays as well. His voice is even as he says, “That seems strange.”

“The message wasn’t about lancers or Magi’i, either.”

“Your mother was from a merchanter background, and so was your grandsire, though, didn’t you say?” Lorn asks,

“I did say that.” Tyrsal glances back again before continuing. “The message was a request for you to inquire about what Tasjan has said about the lady head of Ryalor House, and his plans for the more than tenscore armsmen he is assembling.” Tyrsal glances at Lorn. “That was all.”

Lorn suppresses a swallow. “That is more than enough. More than enough.”

“When you sound like that…I wouldn’t wish to be Tasjan-or you.” Tyrsal’s voice is bleak.

“We’ll have to inquire. That’s all.” Lorn offers a shrug he does not feel.

“There’s always been something about you. You know…did it bother you to break Dett’s fingers all those years ago?”

Lorn frowns. “I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. I didn’t want to, you know, but he wouldn’t listen to anyone. He kept bullying people whenever there weren’t any proctors around, as if he were allowed to do anything he could get away with.” He shrugs, almost sadly. “Dett was always like that. Some people are.”

“And some people, like you, feel that they have to do something about it.”

“If someone doesn’t, even more people get hurt,” Lorn says.

“I suppose that’s true, but I’ve never had the certainty of being as right as you feel you are.”

Lorn’s laugh is harsh. “I’ve never been that certain. You could ask Ryalth about that. But I guess I’d rather act on what I feel, than reproach myself later for not acting. Sometimes, I shouldn’t have acted. And sometimes I should have, but probably did the wrong thing.”

“Not very often, from what I’ve seen.” Tyrsal sighs. “There…you can go. That’s what I wanted to tell you.” The redheaded mage stops. “I know you have to get back to Mirror Lancer Court.”

“I’m glad you did. You know how I feel about Ryalth.”

“I know. That’s why I hope you don’t find too much wrong.”

“Would you have been told if I didn’t have to worry?” asks Lorn.

Both glance at each other as a chill-the chill of a chaos-glass-falls across them.

“That’s why I worry. Another reason,” Tyrsal says.

Lorn catches Tyrsal’s eyes with his own. “Thank you. I mean it. And don’t worry. At least not too much. Give Aleyar our best. And you two are coming to dinner on fiveday, remember?”

“We’ll be there.”

With a smile-one he does not feel-Lorn inclines his head to his friend, and then turns, walking swiftly, but not too swiftly, into the sun toward Mirror Lancer Court and his small study, and the meeting report he has not finished.