Scion of Cyador

LXXVII

In the darkness and quiet of the quarters for visiting senior officers, Lorn sets the chaos-glass on the narrow desk. He takes a long slow breath, and then concentrates. The silver mists fill the glass, then swirl and finally part. But the glass is blank, an opaque and silvered shimmering blankness.

He lets go of the image he has sought, and tries a second time, this time thinking about his mother, about the conversation that they had had on the portico in a cold wind so many years before. But once more, the mists reveal only the silver blankness.

Lorn can feel the perspiration on his forehead, despite the warmth of the late-spring evening. For a time longer, he sits in the dimness, wondering if he has lost the ability to control the image in the glass, because of his fears or the strains upon him.

Then he tries again, and this time the mists reveal Ryalth and Kerial-asleep on the ornate bed. Ryalth turns, as if restlessly, and Lorn releases the image, reluctantly, but glad that she and Kerial appear well.

He tries once more for the first image…and is rewarded again with the silvered blankness that fills the circular glass. When he stops concentrating and the glass clears, his eyes burn. That blankness must mean that his parents are dead, and they have been dead for at least a time, because of the tone of Ryalth’s letter. She had written as if their deaths had occurred eightdays in the past.

That is yet another reason for Dettaur’s death-except Lorn almost wishes he had made Dettaur’s end far more painful. Why had Dettaur been so petty? He still could have sought to discredit Lorn without such smallness.

Lorn shakes his head. Even as he understands, he does not.

Finally, in the dimness of the single oil lamp, he picks up the silver-covered book, leafing through it until his eyes find a verse.

Ashes to ashes

and dust to dust…

Chaos to order and back to flame

brings back no songs without name…

Except…except Lorn will remember, remember words of concern, words of advice, guidance he had not known his parents had even exerted or offered.

He looks sightlessly into the darkness.