Northpoint, Jakaafra
A youth sits in a chair behind a writing desk in the corner of the study. He looks to the vacant white-oak desk, polished and without papers or any objects upon it, then toward the open door to the hallway before returning his attention to the small book he holds, the cover of which is white leather.
Sometime later, he hears steps approaching the study door, but he keeps his eyes on the angular letters on the page he has stopped reading.
“Alyiakal … have you finished your studies?” asks the wiry figure wearing the green-trimmed white uniform of a Mirror Lancer majer.
“Yes, ser.” The youth immediately looks up, his eyes seeming to meet those of his father.
“What have you learned?”
“That chaos must be directed by the least amount of order possible. The greater the order, the more likely it is to weaken the force of chaos.”
“What does that mean?”
“Mean, ser?”
“If you’re going to aspire to the Magi’i, boy, you can’t just parrot the words.” The slightest hint of impatience colors the majer’s words.
“So what do the words mean, ser?” Alyiakal is careful to keep his tone polite. He doesn’t want another beating.
“You tell me.” The majer’s voice is hard. “Magus Triamon says that you can sense order and chaos, if barely. Your mother would have been disappointed by such sophistry.”
Alyiakal holds the wince within himself at the reference to his mother. “Chaos has no order. It will go where it will. Order is necessary to direct chaos, but order reduces chaos. The skill is to direct chaos without reducing the power of that chaos.”
“Alyiakal … you understand. From now on, every stupid question will merit a blow with a switch or lash.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Your supper should have settled. It’s time for your blade exercises and lessons.”
“Yes, ser.”
The majer turns, heading for the rear terrace.
Alyiakal closes the white-leather book, sets it on the writing desk, and stands. While he is now nearly as tall as his father, he is only sixteen, and slender, so far lacking the physical strength of his father. Until the last season, he had dreaded the blade lessons. Although they practiced with wooden wands, he had always ended up with painful bruises. Now, as he walks to the rear terrace of the quarters, he is merely resigned to what may be. He understands all too well that if he fails to satisfy the Magi’i he will follow his father into the Mirror Lancers.
The practice wands—wooden replicas of Mirror Lancer sabres—hang on the rack by the door. As Alyiakal eases his wand from the rack, he considers his lesson. Order must direct chaos, but it also must direct a blade, for an undirected blade cannot be effective. Can he use his slight skills at sensing order to determine where his father’s blade must go? He takes a deep breath. It is worth the effort. He cannot be more badly bruised than he has been in the past. He makes his way to the terrace and waits in the warm air of late Spring.
He does not wait long, for the majer appears in moments, his own wand in hand. “Ready?”
“Yes, ser.” Instead of concentrating on his father’s eyes, Alyiakal tries to sense where his father’s wand will go before it does. For the first few moments, he is scrambling, dancing back, allowing touches—but not hard strikes. Then … slowly, he begins to feel the patterns and to anticipate them.
He slides his father’s wand, and then comes over the top to pin it down, but he cannot hold the wand against Kyal’s greater strength, and he has to jump back.
“Good technique … but you have to finish!” The majer is breathing hard. “Keep at it!”
By the end of half a glass, Alyiakal can slip, parry, or avoid almost every attack his father brings to bear, but he is sweating heavily enough that he can’t see clearly when Kyal abruptly says, “That’s enough for this evening.”
Alyiakal lowers the wand.
“You worked hard, and your defense is much better. Just apply yourself that hard to your studies, and you shouldn’t have that much trouble.”
“I’m still bruised in places, ser.”
“At your age, that’s to be expected.” His father nods. “You’re free to do what you will until dark. Don’t go too far. If you’re going to walk the wall road, don’t forget your sabre.”
“Yes, ser. I won’t.” Alyiakal is sore enough that he isn’t certain he wants to go anywhere. At the same time, being free for a glass or so is a privilege not to be wasted. Still …
After several moments, he decides to at least take a walk, if only to show that he appreciates and will use the privilege. He follows his father inside and carefully racks the wand, then goes to wash up and cool down.
Less than a quarter glass later, he walks out the front door and around the small and narrow privacy screen wall, the ancient Mirror Lancer cupridium blade in the scabbard at his waist. He does not breathe easily until the officers’ quarters at Jakaafra are more than a hundred yards behind him, as is the tall building that holds the northernmost of the chaos towers. Before long he walks southeast along the white sunstone road paralleling the whitestone wall that, along with the wards powered by the chaos towers, confines the Accursed Forest.
Alyiakal glances to his right. Between the wall and road, there is neither vegetation nor grass, only bare salted ground. To the left are fields and orchards, and a few cots and barns, fewer with each kay from Jakaafra … until the next town, kays away.
He keeps walking along the road flanking the white wall, glancing back, but he sees no one, and no lancer patrols, not that he expects any. While his eyes remain alert for any movement, especially near the wall, his thoughts consider what had happened during his blade practice … and how he had not previously thought of using order to help in using a sabre.
How else might I use order? He doesn’t have an answer to that question, but he does not have time to pursue it because, some fifty yards ahead, at the base of the whitestone wall is a black beast, a chaos panther, lowering itself, as if to spring and charge him. He draws the antique lancer sabre, knowing that its usefulness against such a massive beast is limited at best.
Then … the black predator is gone, and a girl—a young woman, he realizes—stands beside the wall. He starts to walk toward her … and as suddenly as she was there, she also has vanished. He looks around, bewildered, but the salted ground between the patrol road and the wall remains empty—for as far as he can see.
Carefully, if unwisely, he knows, he moves toward where both the black cat-like creature and the young woman had been.
Once there, he studies the ground. There are bootprints, but no pawprints, leading to the wall, not away from it, as if someone had walked from the road to the wall. He can find no bootprints leading away.
A concealing illusion? It had to be, but he can sense neither the heavy blackness of order nor the whitish red of chaos. And from a woman, when there are no women Magi’i?
Finally, after waiting and watching for perhaps a fifth of a glass, he turns and begins to walk back home, thinking.
On fourday morning, as on most mornings, except sevenday and eightday, Alyiakal sets out early on the three-kay walk to the house of Magus Triamon, carrying only the white leather-bound book, and not wearing the old Mirror Lancer sabre, since his father has made it more than clear that he may not wear it into the town. He makes his way east to the narrow stone road that runs northwest of the lancer compound, taking a last look at the whitestone wall that girdles the Accursed Forest, then turning toward Jakaafra. While he walks swiftly, nearly a glass passes before he steps onto the porch. He knocks three times, then once, before stepping back and waiting, standing between the privacy screen and the door. He is about to sit down on the wooden bench beside the door when it opens, and the gray-haired magus stands there, his angular countenance younger than his hair would indicate.
Triamon says nothing, just steps back and motions for the youth to enter, closing the heavy door behind them.
Alyiakal follows him to the study, which contains a tall and narrow bookcase, a desk and two chairs, an ancient white-oak cabinet that has aged to a golden shade, and a table slightly over waist-high topped with dark gray soapstone, on which rests a single candle in an unornamented bronze holder.
“Today, you’re going to learn a bit more about the dangers of chaos, Alyiakal.” Triamon gestures to the oak cabinet that is beside the stone-topped table. “How old would you say that cabinet is?”
“The wood is aged. It looks to be at least fifty years old.”
“It does look that old. It’s not. It’s but ten years old. That’s what too much chaos too close can do.”
“You said that you always keep chaos under control, ser.”
“I’m careful, but I’ve taught a few other would-be Magi’i besides you.”
“They did that?”
“So will you, after a time, if you’re not careful,” Triamon says, eyes on his student.
For a moment, Alyiakal says nothing, then realizes that the magus expects a response, and blurts, “After a time? Is that because I can’t muster enough chaos to affect the chest until I’m stronger?”
“That’s one reason, but there’s another.”
“Because young mages use more chaos than they should?”
Triamon smiles momentarily, then says, “They often do, but that wouldn’t matter, except for the reason I’m seeking.”
Alyiakal tries to conceal the puzzlement he feels.
“For the present, I’ll not tell you, and we’ll see if you can come up with the answer over the next few eightdays. I will give you a hint. You won’t find it in your text.”
If it’s not in Basics of Magery, where am I supposed to find it? Alyiakal is aware enough not to ask the question.
After a slight pause, Triamon says, “In the meantime, you must sharpen your awareness of order and chaos. Watch the candle, with your senses, not your eyes.”
Alyiakal concentrates on the candle as a point of chaos touches the already blackened wick and as the heat of that chaos creates the usual flame of a lighted candle.
“Is there more chaos in the flame or in the candle?” asks Triamon.
“The flame,” declares Alyiakal.
The magus shakes his head. “What does the book say about forms of chaos?”
“There are two basic forms of chaos, free chaos and order-bound chaos.”
“And what is a candle composed of?”
“Order-bound chaos,” replies Alyiakal, “but I can’t use it or sense it. So it seems to me—”
“The failure is in your senses. What does the book say about the relative power of order-bound chaos and free chaos?”
“Free chaos is the more powerful.”
“That’s not quite what it states, Alyiakal. You need to read more carefully. I’ll expect a better answer tomorrow.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Now, I’m going to gather points of free chaos. You compare the point I’ve gathered to the amount of free chaos in the candle flame, and tell me which contains more free chaos.”
A larger point of chaos appears beside the candle flame.
“Your point contains more chaos.”
Triamon reduces the amount of gathered chaos. “Now which one?”
“Yours.”
Triamon moves the chaos point farther from the flame. “Now which?”
“Yours.”
The magus moves the chaos point to the far side of the study. “And now?”
“They seem about the same.”
“What they seem could kill you if it’s not correct. Which has more?”
“The candle.”
Triamon shakes his head. “I contracted the chaos so that it was more tightly packed, but it held more chaos. You went by the size you sensed, not the amount of chaos.”
By the end of the glass that is the length of his lesson, Alyiakal has a headache, but he has improved greatly in his ability to sense the relative strength of the chaos point compared to the candle.
“You’re getting much better ability. In the days ahead, I’ll have you work on judging strengths of dissimilar or mixed forces.”
“Mixed forces?”
“How else can a magus create and throw a chaos bolt? Some chaos bolts are deadlier than others. As a magus you need to sense immediately what you need to use and what you need in defending yourself.” Triamon pauses. “Now … I’m going to give you an exercise you can do at home…”
Despite his headache, Alyiakal concentrates on Triamon’s instructions.
When Alyiakal leaves the dwelling of the magus his steps are slow for several reasons. Even though it isn’t even midday yet, the early Summer sun feels as hot as mid-Summer. Also, there is no real reason to hurry, since his father won’t be home until late afternoon, if then, and Areya will not arrive until early afternoon to clean and then prepare dinner. His steps remain slow as he thinks over his lesson, trying to puzzle out why stronger mage students created more uncontrolled free chaos later in their studies, rather than earlier, especially since Magus Triamon had agreed with his suggestions, but had said there was another reason. He also frets over the fact that he had not read the text carefully enough, particularly if the magus reports that to his father. Carelessness or sloppiness—or stupidity—always results in punishment.
But you get privileges if you do well.
Except that it often seems he doesn’t meet his father’s standards.
Alyiakal smiles ruefully, recalling his father’s words, words he has heard in one form or another more than once, usually when he thinks about complaining, not that he’s actually said a word of complaint in years.
“That’s life. Mistakes can cost everything. Rewards are few, and those rewards are to be cherished.”
Despite his measured pace, Alyiakal has to blot the dampness from his forehead as he steps into the coolness of the quarters. The day is even warmer than he expected, and Summer swelters around the Accursed Forest on the best of days. After standing for a moment in the small entry, he walks into the kitchen, but finds little to eat except bread and cheese in the coolbox. Since bread and cheese is better than nothing, he eats what has been left for him, along with some water.
After eating, he takes the copy of Basics of Magery to the shaded corner of the rear terrace, sits on the bench, and begins to read, forcing himself to concentrate on the words and their meaning. After half a glass he has still not found the words or phrases that he must have misread … or that Magus Triamon may have remembered from another text. Another quarter glass passes before he finds what he seeks.
… order and chaos comprise all objects, from the smallest grain of sand to the massive sunstone blocks that provide the foundation of the Palace of Light. The chaos in a mere pebble is scores upon scores more powerful than the firebolts of the greatest of the Magi’i, yet bound as it is to order, that power held within the pebble cannot be gathered by a magus unaided, and is as nothing, so that a magus must gather free chaos from where he can …
Alyiakal rereads the paragraph once more. How did you miss that?
He takes a deep breath and continues reading, forcing himself to read all the words, even the boring ones and those too often repeating the obligations laid upon any who would be Magi’i.
When he finishes rereading what he had obviously not read closely enough, as well as the next section of the text, equally closely, it is well past midafternoon.
Since Areya has finished her cleaning and is in the kitchen preparing the evening meal, Alyiakal will not disturb her if he goes into the study, which he does. There, he takes down two night candles in their holders and sets them side by side on the writing desk. Then he uses a striker to light one, an effort that takes more than a few attempts.
Following Triamon’s instructions, he concentrates on the lit candle, as much with his senses and thoughts as with his eyes. In time, he begins to sense what is almost an image of golden reddish white around the tip of the candle wick … as well as a faint blackish mist above the point of the flame. Yet he sees neither the white nor the black with his eyes. Of that, he is certain … but they are there.
Next, he concentrates on replicating the pattern of golden whiteness around the tip of the wick of the unlit candle. Sweat beads on his forehead. Nothing happens.
“You must not be doing it right,” he murmurs to himself.
He shakes his head, then closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath. Finally, he concentrates once more. The wick of the unlit candle remains dark.
Do you need to look at the candle?
He looks steadily at the candle, concentrating, but the blackened wick remains as it was. Next, he closes his eyes and tries to visualize the dark wick, and a pattern of golden whiteness around it. He opens his eyes quickly, only to see a tiny point of redness, visible to his eyes, wink out.
“You can do it,” he says quietly, redoubling his efforts.
Sweat is running into his eyes a quarter glass later when the candle flickers alight … and stays lit. Alyiakal allows himself only a brief smile and a moment of rest before he blows out the candle and repeats the effort. After a deep breath, he once more blows out the candle … and relights it—just by focusing order on chaos.
He has repeated the process once more when he hears the door open, and the heavy footsteps of his father, steps seemingly far too ponderous for a man as small as the majer.
“What are you doing with the candles?” asks Kyal, not quite brusquely, as he steps into the study.
“Practicing an exercise that Magus Triamon gave me. He told me to work on it until I could do it instantly.”
“Lighting a candle?”
“Lighting it without a striker, ser. That requires gathering chaos. He says it’s the first step in mastering chaos.”
Slowly, Kyal nods, as if he is not certain about the matter.
At that moment, there is a series of knocks on the front door, followed by a loud voice. “Majer! Ser!”
The majer turns and walks swiftly from the study to the front door, which he opens.
Alyiakal does not follow, but strains to listen intently.
“Majer Kyal … ser … it’s happened again.”
“What?” snaps the majer, whose voice is far larger than his stature.
“Another dispatch rider is gone. The incoming patrol found his mount and the dispatches. There’s no sign of him. The men claim they saw a black chaos cat, one of the big ones. It was prowling outside the wall, just to the southwest of the northern point.”
“Send a squad with fully charged firelances. I’d like a report of what they find. Or what they don’t.”
“Yes, ser.”
Kyal closes the door and walks back to the archway into the small library. “We’d best eat early. There’s no telling when we’ll get another chance.” He pauses. “Are you finished with the exercises?”
Alyiakal nods. “I did what the magus wanted.”
“You can tell me about it at supper. We need to wash up. I’ll tell Areya to get the plates ready.”
When the two are finally seated at the table, Areya sets a platter of mutton slices covered with cheese and a yellow-green glaze of ground rosemary. One smaller platter holds lace potatoes, and another thinly sliced pearapples. The pitcher holds a decent, but not outstanding, red wine.
Kyal serves himself, then passes each platter to Alyiakal. “What about the exercises?”
“Every flame holds both chaos and order, but there’s almost no order and much more chaos. Magus Triamon taught me how to sense both order and chaos in the flame. He says that’s the easiest way to sense them at first. Once I could sense them, and he made sure of that by swirling the patterns, he made me try to move the chaos myself. Then he sent me home with the exercise. That was to light a candle, and then learn to light another one by duplicating the pattern of chaos around the wick. It took a while, but I did it three times in a row. Next, I have to light a candle without using another candle as a pattern.”
“Do you think you’ll ever be able to match a full magus?” asks the majer, not quite diffidently.
“Magus Triamon thinks I can … if I keep working.”
Kyal nods slowly. “I’d advise you to work very hard, son.”
“I will, ser.” After a silence, Alyiakal looks at his father. “Is that because I will not match you in might?”
Kyal laughs. “Oh … you’ll be able to do that in another year or so. You’re still growing, and it looks like you’ll be taller and broader than me. Your technique is far better than mine was at your age. No … it’s because too many Mirror Lancers are being killed fighting the barbarians who swarm across the Grass Hills, especially to the north. We need better weapons. Perhaps you’ll be able to become a great enough magus to create them. Even if you don’t, the Magi’i are the only ones who can use the Mirror Towers to keep our firelances charged.”
“You don’t want me to be a Mirror Lancer officer like you?”
“I’d like it very much. But the son of a lancer majer from Jakaafra is likely to do no better than his sire, if his talents are limited to the blade and skill at arms alone. Why do you think I insist on your reading about tactics and logistics?”
“But … Magus Triamon…”
“You may become a great magus. You may not, but a lancer has three weapons—his sabre, his firelance, and his mind. Firelances are powered by chaos. If you do follow in my steps, the more you know and the more you can do with chaos, the better you will be with your weapons. The more you study with the magus, the more you will know what I cannot teach you, and that will sharpen your mind even more.” Kyal clears his throat. “There is one more thing. All the senior Mirror Lancer officers come from the great families of Cyad. If you wish to rise further than I have, you must become more capable than all of them. You must be so clearly so superior that none can contest you.” Kyal smiles wryly. “That, you will find, is true in all areas where a man must make his way.” His words turn sardonic. “At times, even that is not sufficient.”
Alyiakal sits, silent. Never has his father talked so bluntly.
“It’s time you began to learn more of how the world works … really works. Now … eat your supper. I’ll have to leave soon to see what that squad has found. You can walk a bit tonight, but go the southeast way. And be careful.”
“Yes, ser.”
Once they finish eating and after the majer leaves the quarters, Alyiakal fastens on the old sword belt and scabbard, checks the sabre, and then slips out into the early-evening air, still steaming, but not quite so unbearable as it was several glasses earlier. Once he is away from the quarters buildings of the Mirror Lancer outpost, he studies the wall even more closely, but he sees no sign of anyone or anything on the road or near it.
Then, after he has walked close to half a kay, in the early twilight, when his eyes move from the fields of a small stead on his left, whose house is out of sight, and likely as far from the wall as possible, to the cleared and salted strip of land on his right, he sees a large black panther-cat crouched at the base of the sunstone wall, where he had seen nothing at all a moment before.
Where did that come from? He stops and studies the beast. While his hand rests on the top of the hilt of his sabre, he does not attempt to draw the weapon. The black panther-cat’s eyes remain fixed on him. There is something … something he cannot fathom … yet he has no doubt that his sabre will likely not suffice against such a creature. What will?
Fire! All wild animals fear—or are wary of—flame. Can you create a flame large enough to startle it? He smiles nervously. It cannot hurt to try.
He looks directly at the panther-cat, then concentrates on replicating the flame pattern of a candle—a very large candle.
A flare of light flashes up in front of the creature … then vanishes.
Alyiakal feels as though his head has been cleft in two. His eyes burn, and for several moments he cannot move.
Abruptly … the giant cat vanishes. A black-haired young woman, scarcely more than a girl, stands there, the same one as he saw before, he thinks.
She laughs. “Fair enough!”
“Who are you?” he asks, moving forward, if slowly.
“Someone of the Forest and the town,” she replies, taking several steps toward him. “Nothing more.”
He laughs softly. “Nothing more? When you can take on the semblance of a giant black panther and then vanish?”
She frowns.
Now that he is closer, he sees that her eyes are as black as her hair, for all that her skin is a lightly tanned creamy color. “I saw you do that eightdays ago. You didn’t really vanish, did you? You only made it seem so.”
She stops and asks, “Why do you say that?”
“Because I followed your bootprints, and you climbed over the whitestone wall into the Accursed Forest.”
“It’s not cursed. It’s different.”
“You’ve actually been in the … Forest … and you’re alive?”
“You sound so surprised. Why?”
Despite her question, Alyiakal feels that she is somehow amused. “Lancers die every season from attacks by the black cats or the stun lizards.”
“That’s because they consider the cats and lizards enemies, and the cats and lizards can feel that.”
“I think it’s more than that,” says Alyiakal, looking directly at her. Up close it is clear she must be at least several years older than he is; it is also obvious that she is striking. Not pretty, but something beyond. What that might be, he is far from certain.
“Why do you think that?” she asks.
“Because they have attacked those who have not attacked them.”
“How is a stun lizard to determine which man is foe and which is not?” She lifts her eyebrows in quizzical amusement.
“You said they could tell the difference.”
“Can you use that blade?” she asks, turning and walking parallel to the wall.
“Yes.” He takes several quick steps to catch up to her.
“Then you must be Alyiakal.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Magus Triamon said it was a pity you were already so proficient with such a weapon. No one else near Jakaafra uses a blade and can also sense both black and white.”
“You’re obviously far better at that than am I.”
“I’m older.”
“Not that much,” he protests.
“You’re young, and you’re kind. Trust me. I am older.”
“What do you do in the Forest?”
“You don’t have to do anything in the Forest.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She smiles. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then show me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“If anything happened to you, your father would seek those responsible. Magus Triamon would have to flee or die, and I could never see my father again—if he survived your father’s wrath.”
Alyiakal thinks, then says, “Could you show me some of the Forest from the wall?”
A smile that becomes a wide grin crosses her lips. “You’d do that after all the lancers your father has lost?”
“How do you … how much do you know about me … and my father?”
“He’s in charge of the Mirror Lancers here in Jakaafra, and you live with him in the quarters, and you study with Master Triamon.” She shrugs. “Other than that … very little, except that you have courage and are willing to look beyond walls.”
“Will you show me?” he asks again.
“Since you’re asking. But you must promise not to enter the Forest.”
“You said it wasn’t dangerous.” He offers an impish grin.
“It isn’t … if you know what you’re doing. You don’t.”
Alyiakal can accept that. “I won’t.” Not until I do know, at least.
“Then climb up.” She turns and scrambles up the whitestone so quickly that she is looking down at him before he even begins.
He discovers that the stone is smoother than it looks. He almost loses his grip twice, but soon he perches on the flat surface of the wall beside her, looking into the part of the Accursed Forest that cannot be seen from the wall road.
Less than thirty yards from the base of the wall beneath Alyiakal is the rounded end of a pool, whose still waters look to be a clear deep green in the gloom created by both the beginning of twilight and the high canopy of the taller trees and the lower canopy formed by the undergrowth, if it can be called that, for those trees are far taller than any Alyiakal has seen anywhere outside the Accursed Forest, not that he recalls much of anyplace that has not been near the Forest. A long greenish log lies half in, half out of the water, except that when the log moves, Alyiakal realizes that it is a stun lizard, not that he has ever seen one, but only drawings of the beasts.
“The stun lizard … are they all so big?”
“That’s a small one. Some of them are more than ten yards from snout to tail, and they can stun an entire squad of lancers.”
“How do you know that?”
“Shhhh … watch.”
An enormous black panther-cat pads along the side of the pond opposite the stun lizard, which freezes back into resembling a log. A cream-colored crane, with silver-green wings, alights at the far end of the pond, standing motionless for the longest time. Then, suddenly, the long beak stabs into the water and comes up with a squirming flash of silver impaled on the beak almost as sharp as a cupridium blade.
“Try to see the order and the chaos in each of them,” she suggests.
Alyiakal had not thought of that, and even as he wonders why he should, he attempts what she has suggested. At first, he can sense only swirling flows of order and chaos … but as he keeps watching, he can soon discern that the order and chaos within each of the Forest creatures is locked in a tight pattern, and that while the patterns are different, they share a similarity he cannot describe.
“You need to go,” the woman who looks like a girl says quietly.
He glances to the west. While he cannot see the sun, the angles of the shadows tell him that it is far later than he realized. Has that much time passed? He looks to her. “Thank you.”
After he drops to the salted ground beneath the wall, he looks back up. She remains there, looking at him.
“You didn’t tell me your name,” he says.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s better that way.”
“Why don’t you want me to know your name?”
“I’d be happy to have you learn my name … as long as you don’t discover it from me.” Then she smiles … and vanishes.
For several moments, Alyiakal can faintly sense a web of darkness on the wall, but he sees nothing. Then the darkness drops away, leaving the top of the wall empty of order … and her. The only sounds are those from the Accursed Forest, and they are muted.
He turns and begins the walk back toward the quarters, walking quickly and hoping he will not be so late that Areya will tell his father.
Now that the memorial for His Mightiness Kiedral’elth’alt’mer, Second Emperor of Light, is a year behind us, almost no one remembers Kiedral Daloren, Vice Marshal of the Anglorian Unity, yet they were one and the same.
Before him, there was chaos. Not the chaos confined within the Towers of Light, nor the chaos of the great and possibly accursed forest, but the chaos of power not understood and too often misused conflicting with ambitions formed in a past now unreachable by either machines or magery. He saw that chaos and the need for it to be channeled into productive use, and persuaded, sometimes violently, those of all manner of power and passions into the social-power triad all in Cyad and its lands call the Magi’i, the Mirror Lancers, and the Merchanters.
That accomplishment was far more difficult than the construction of the City of Light, and far, far more arduous than his taming of the great forest, or his cold-blooded dealing with the theft of a chaos tower in the brief schism of southeastern dissidents, or his insistence on the building of the first sunstone highways and the great canal, yet few today, even before his death, would consider the success of that social triad as an accomplishment. They regard it as something that merely happened, ignoring the schism as a symptom of what could have destroyed a united Cyador, and now believe that the triad was something absolutely inevitable, and that unthinking acceptance in itself marks the significance of that achievement.
The Second Emperor of Light was a greater magus than any of the First Magi’i who served him and Cyador, but he went out of his way to avoid showing that power. He was a greater strategist and tactician than any of the Majer-Commanders who have led the Mirror Lancers, but he let them take his “suggestions” as their own and then praised them for their leadership and acumen.
If the Emperors of Light who come after him try to follow his specific acts or deeds, or even principles, they will fail, for Kiedral’elth’alt’mer understood, as few do, that those who lead must do so from the true core of who they have been and who they are at each moment in time, and they must understand what they must become as they change the world in which they live …
Fragment, Mirror Lancer Archives
Zaenth’alt, Captain-Commander
Cyad, 45 A.F.
The next morning, when Alyiakal arrives at the small square dwelling under the canopy of the overarching oak trees, as often occurs, he has to wait for Magus Triamon to open the door and admit him. Rather than sit on the bench on the porch, he finds himself pacing back and forth, debating how much he should say, until Triamon opens the door and motions for him to enter.
Alyiakal hurries inside and to the study.
“You seem eager this morning,” says the gray-haired magus as he closes the study door.
“I came across another student of yours, Master Triamon.”
“Oh? Which one?”
“The black-haired young woman.”
Triamon nods and smiles. “She’s not exactly a student of mine. And how did you meet her?”
“She gave the image of herself as a great black panther-cat. Except I just saw the Forest cat. So I created an image of a large flame because cats don’t like fire. I don’t know how good an image it was, but she dropped the image of the panther-cat and laughed.”
Triamon frowns. “How did you manage that? We haven’t gotten to illusions yet.”
“Ser … you had me studying the sense and image of candle flames. I made it bigger. It probably didn’t look real, but I thought it might scare off the panther-cat. Except it wasn’t a panther-cat.”
“You must have amused her. Otherwise, you never would have seen her.” Triamon pauses. “A real panther-cat would have still sensed you. It might have attacked you, but the flame image wasn’t a bad idea.”
“I know it might not have worked, but I only had my sabre, and that wouldn’t have been enough. That was the best I could do.”
“I said it wasn’t a bad thought, Alyiakal. If you have to do something like that again, try to put a few tiny points of chaos along the edges of your thought-image. That will help.”
“Thank you, ser.” After an instant, Alyiakal asks, “Who is she?”
“That, my young pupil, you will have to discover for yourself.”
“She said the same thing. Are you both so frightened of my father?”
The magus shakes his head. “Your father is but an officer, a strong and honest one. But he is a Mirror Lancer, and one does not anger the Mirror Lancers.”
“Why would telling me her name upset anyone?”
“She has the gift of the Magi’i, without any training. She cannot be a magus, and she refused to be just a healer. I understand some of the poorest folk seek her out for healing. For those reasons, and others, the powers of the altage and those of the Magi’i would be less than pleased if I facilitated any acquaintance between the two of you.”
“But I’ve already met—” Alyiakal breaks off the remainder of what he had been about to say as the import of what Triamon said sinks in. Then he asks, “Because you are of the Magi’i?”
“Exactly. There are … agreements…”
“That’s absurd. I don’t intend to consort her.”
“Consorting is not precisely the problem.”
“Then why are you teaching me? I’m not from an elthage family.”
“To determine if you can become a magus. Not all of the Magi’i come from elthage families, and not all elthage offspring can become Magi’i, as not all sons of Mirror Lancer officers continue in the lancers. If the Magi’i accept you, then the Mirror Lancers will not want you. If your talent is only of order and not excessive, then you might be acceptable to the Mirror Engineers. If your talent is broader but also not excessive, such as lighting candles and healing, then you will never become a magus, and you are acceptable to the Mirror Lancers.”
“Just acceptable?”
“They prefer lancers who have no talent with order or chaos, but limited ability, especially healing, is acceptable in junior officers.”
“Then why should I study with you?”
“Why indeed?” Triamon smiles.
“Another answer I must find for myself?”
“In the end, we all must find our own answers.” Triamon’s smile vanishes. “Do you wish to proceed with your lessons?”
“Why would I not?”
“Good. Have you considered the comparative power of the candle and the chaos of the flame?”
“I did. I misread that section of the text. I was thinking about the power of the chaos a magus could gather, not the amount of chaos locked within a candle or anything else.” After a slight hesitation, Alyiakal asks, “Has any magus ever tried to unlock the chaos within objects?”
“It is said that the founders of Cyad who created the Mirror Towers built them so that they are powered in a way similar to that. That may be so. It may not. What is so is that no magus since then has been able to create a chaos tower or anything like it. It is also true that all Magi’i are strongly discouraged from attempting anything like that.”
“But if they could—”
“If they were successful, the power released would likely shred their shields and destroy them and anything nearby.” Triamon clears his throat. “Now … today, you will begin work on the importance of focus…”
After his glass of instruction and practice with Triamon, Alyiakal makes his way to the market square, rather than return immediately to quarters. He stands at the edge of the square, pondering where to start.
At last, he begins his inquiries with a young woman not that much older than he is who stands at a stall selling a range of plain bowls of various sizes.
She glances at him speculatively for a moment, then says, “You’re not interested in bowls, and you’re wasting your time.”
“You’re right about the bowls,” Alyiakal admits. “I wondered if you knew anything about a black-haired, black-eyed woman who frequents the Accursed Forest.”
“Never heard of such, and you’d be a fool to get close to anything like that.”
“Thank you,” replies Alyiakal politely as he moves to the next stall, one where a white-haired woman sells scarves of wool and cotton, but none of shimmersilk, not that he expected any, for the only shimmersilk scarf he ever saw was the blue one his mother had. For all its worth, it had burned with her. At the time, Alyiakal hadn’t understood, because he’d wanted the scarf so much to remind him of her. Eight years later, his father still would have no blue cloth in their quarters.
“I’ve heard tales,” the weaver says, “little else.”
The grower woman with carrots and quilla for sale knows nothing, and neither does the apprentice coppersmith hawking some of his master’s wares.
After asking a half score others, Alyiakal comes to a worn woman who sells grass and reed baskets.
“Good woman … would you know the black-eyed young woman with black hair who often goes to the Accursed Forest?”
“The child of forest and night?”
“Yes … I believe so.”
“No … I have seen her. I do not know her.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No. It would not be wise to ask.”
Alyiakal refrains from asking why and merely says, “Thank you.” Then he moves to the next stall, that of a spicemonger, who is haggling over the price of pepper so vociferously that Alyiakal moves to the cart beyond, which displays open kegs of salted fish, where he asks the same question.
“I know few here,” replies the fishmonger. “Never saw one like her, though.”
Next, he tries the woman selling pastries and meat pies.
“The spawn of the Accursed Forest? Best you stay away from her, young fellow.”
“Do you know her name?”
“Why would I?” sneers the woman. “No good would come from that.”
Alyiakal moves on, and over the next glass, he visits more than a score of carts and stalls before he comes to the one-eyed beggar propped against the wall. He has always avoided the beggar before, but ashamed of himself for his lack of compassion in the past, he places a copper in the near-empty bowl.
“Heard your question of the cheese-seller, boy. They all fear her, you know?”
“You don’t, I think,” replies Alyiakal with a half smile.
“What’s to fear? Her name is Adayal, and her father is a carpenter. Her mother … who knows?”
“Thank you.” Alyiakal puts another copper in the bowl.
“Be careful in what you’ll be wanting, young fellow. Great wants call to great danger.” With that, the old beggar closes his one good eye.
Great wants call to great danger? How could wanting to know Adayal’s name be a great want?
With a puzzled smile, he turns and heads back toward the quarters, hoping to arrive before Areya so that he need not explain his absence, although it is unlikely she will ask. And, of course, he has much to read, and another exercise from Magus Triamon.
For Alyiakal, the Summer days pass slowly, although instruction from Magus Triamon widens, so that he can call up more than a limited concealment, momentary shields, and more illusions than merely flames. Even so, despite all his walks along the wall, and his forays into the town, Alyiakal does not see Adayal, or any large panther-cats, either.
Often he climbs the wall of the Accursed Forest and perches or sits there, watching what goes on beyond, trying to hold a concealment as he does, but when he does, he finds he cannot see, and can only sense through his use of order. But for all his efforts, he does not encounter the Forest girl. He thinks of her as such, even though it is more than clear that she is truly a woman … and definitely even more, but what more Alyiakal can only imagine.
At breakfast on threeday of the seventh eightday of Summer, the majer clears his throat. “I received a dispatch late last evening. You were not around.”
“You said I could walk so long as I was careful. I’ve been careful.” If not exactly in ways you would approve.
Kyal continues without addressing Alyiakal’s observation. “I’m going to have to leave this morning and accompany Third Company to Geliendra. Commander Waasol wants to see all the majers posted to duty near the Accursed Forest to discuss possible changes in the standing orders.” The majer adds, sardonically, “When senior officers say that they want to discuss something, that usually means they’re making a change that will either cost lives or take more time to accomplish, if not both. That’s true among the Magi’i as well.”
“I’ll remember that,” replies Alyiakal.
“I’ll likely be gone an eightday. Areya will come in daily to clean and prepare your dinner. You’re to get your own breakfasts and clean up dinner. You’re also to keep up with your lessons. I’ve sent word to Magus Triamon. You’re to see him both morning and afternoon. I’ve instructed him to keep you challenged and busy. You’re to do exactly what he tells you.”
“Yes, ser.” Alyiakal does not point out that he has never not followed the instructions of the magus. He also does not mention the times when he has done things that would have been forbidden, had he asked, such as his covert observations of the Accursed Forest from the top of the wall.
After the usual breakfast of porridge, bread, and fruit, the fruit being pearapples for the present, Alyiakal cleans up the kitchen, then walks to the door with his father, not quite knowing what to say. He finally manages, “Ser … please take care.”
Kyal smiles. “You’re the one who needs to take care. I look forward to seeing your progress in mastering order and chaos when I return.”
“Yes, ser.”
Alyiakal watches as his father carries a small duffel toward the Mirror Lancer stables, then finally closes the door. The knowledge that he is free of daily scrutiny is not particularly liberating, not when he knows that, when his father returns, he will be judged on the state of the quarters, his courtesy to Areya, his progress in magery, and whatever Magus Triamon may report.
He takes a deep breath, then walks to the rear terrace, where he seats himself on the bench and quietly waits. After a time, a bird with yellow-banded black wings alights on the wall behind the terrace, cocking its head and emitting an irritatingly cheerful twirrpp.
Alyiakal concentrates on perceiving the patterns of chaos and order that flow within the traitor bird. As he does, the bird emits another twirrpp, a sound so irritating that Alyiakal wants to shoo it away, but he knows that its call is designed to bring hidden prey to the attention of mountain and forest cats, either revealing the prey or causing the prey to move and become more vulnerable, so that, in time, the traitor bird can scavenge the kill.
Not moving, Alyiakal continues to study the bird, until he can fix in his mind the patterns he senses. Only then does he stand, and only then does the traitor bird fly from the wall to the green apple tree farther from the terrace.
Alyiakal returns to the study, where he carefully takes a cupridium-tipped pen and draws an outline of the bird, then painstakingly illustrates the concentrations of chaos with small dots, and those of order with thin dashes. Because the only ink he has is black, he writes beneath the sketch of the bird that the patch of chaos near the base of the left wing is white and reddish-orange. Then he wipes the nib of the pen clean with a small rag and lets his rough sketch dry before adding it to the one of the rat and the cat that he had done the afternoon before. He has also studied an ant and a leafhopper, but they were too small for him to sketch accurately; so he had written notes about them below the other images.
Half a glass later, he gathers the papers and the copy of Basics of Magery, then sets out on the long walk to Jakaafra and the house of Magus Triamon. He still uses both his eyes and his developing order/chaos senses, always hoping to see or discern Adayal in some fashion, but as it has been for the eightdays and eightdays since he last met with her, his efforts are fruitless.
When he reaches Triamon’s dwelling, the magus opens the door even before Alyiakal can reach out to knock. The two walk to the study, where Alyiakal hands the sketches and notes to Triamon, hoping that his tutor will not be too harsh.
In turn, the magus studies each of the sheets before speaking. Then he nods. “These are adequate. Perhaps slightly more than adequate. The detailing of the order flows … many Magi’i could not do that.”
“They couldn’t?” blurts Alyiakal.
“A significant number of Magi’i are so attuned to chaos that they have difficulty discerning order flows, particularly small order flows. The term you may hear, but should not use, is ‘order-blind.’ The use of those words offends many higher-level mages.”
Alyiakal understands all too well that those with power do not like references to their faults or weaknesses.
“While you are not a student magus,” Triamon goes on, “you are now close in ability to many of them, and your discernment of patterns of both order and chaos is far more than adequate.” Triamon pauses, then asks, “What do you recall about the chaos pattern near the base of the wing of the traitor bird?”
“There was a small central point of whitish red—I know that doesn’t make sense, but that was how it felt—and then outside that was a bit of orangish red, and outside of that was faint dull red, and the edge of the dull red … well, it faded into gray with tiny bits of dull red.”
“Excellent!” declares Triamon.
So seldom has Alyiakal heard that word that he doesn’t know what to say. Finally, he manages, “I should have written it all down.”
“Most midlevel healers couldn’t have done any better, and they have more experience with wounds and injuries. There are many shades to chaos, more than the shades of order. That is why even the lowest of healers need to know the shades and what each signifies, as you will need to know, one way or the other.”
“Why do I need to know about healing? Are not the most valuable talents of a magus those that can be used to store and channel chaos?”
“They are … but even the most powerful of the Magi’i in handling chaos need to know how chaos damages the body. Also, you are more grounded in order, and order suits healing. If the Magi’i accept you for training, the more you know the better, and because many Magi’i deal more with chaos than is healthy, you should know your limits. Without understanding healing, you will not. If you do not become a magus, then you will be either a Mirror Engineer or a Mirror Lancer. Mirror Engineers deal with order flows to recharge firelances and other devices. If you are a lancer, it will help if you can aid healing of your men. That will keep you from losing too many rankers and give them cause to support you when you need it.”
Alyiakal frowns.
“Mirror Lancer officers will always need the support of their men at least once, if not more often. The ones who don’t get it generally die before they make majer.” Triamon’s words are delivered in a dry, sardonic tone that emphasizes their verity.
Alyiakal starts to protest, then closes his mouth. His father does know field healing, even if he does not have the skill of even a beginning healer magus.
“The lowest and least focused chaos is a dull red, infused with gray, or gray with the slightest tinge of dull red, as you described with the traitor bird. It was likely stung by a fruit wasp.”
Alyiakal winces. He has been stung only once, and he still remembers how it hurt for almost an eightday.
“Sometimes, even a bad bruise will show the dull red. If there is more than a point of intense whitish-red chaos, the wound is serious, and if that whiteness cannot be turned to the dull red with the careful infusion of free order, it is likely it will spread, and the injury will turn fatal…”
Alyiakal forces himself to concentrate, although it doesn’t take that much effort, not when he recalls the sting of the fruit wasp.
Even with two lessons a day for close to two eightdays, Alyiakal has more than enough time to continue his walks along the wall, but he sees neither Adayal nor any large panther-cats, either. He still studies the creatures of the Accursed Forest from the wall, and he can now distinguish most of them by their patterns of order and chaos, or rather chaos held in patterns by order. But Summer gives way to Harvest, and Alyiakal has yet to see Adayal, even though he now knows she must dwell there, at least part of the time.
He has realized in hindsight that inquiring about her at the market square was not the wisest of decisions, but as the eightdays have passed, he can hope that those he asked will forget, and since he and his father have never gone there together, it is likely few will even know who he is or link him to Kyal’alt, Mirror Lancer Majer.
But a young man asking about a young woman, even one touched by the Accursed Forest, isn’t the greatest of indiscretions. At least, you hope so.
Still, he continues to observe the Forest and look for boot tracks, but he never sees or senses her. Then perhaps she is not there or has created a concealment so perfect that his order senses cannot penetrate it. How is he to know which it might be, or both … or neither?
He also tries a bit of limited healing, by adding a touch of order to wound chaos on one of the not-quite-stray dogs around the post and on one of the feral cats. Both seem to improve. At least, the wound chaos fades to dull red.
On the second threeday of Harvest, an eightday after his birthday, early on another evening when his father is away on patrol, for even majers must occasionally patrol, Alyiakal has removed himself from the quarters to a place on the wall from which he can watch one end of the pool some thirty yards away, the same pool that Adayal had shown him the first time he had looked into the Accursed Forest.
His awareness has expanded, and he can now sense the wards mounted on the outer side of the wall, and the intertwined pulsations of order and chaos that both link the wards and create the barrier that largely keeps the Forest from exceeding its boundaries. Even so, he can barely make out the stun lizard half-concealed by a fallen log, although it is small, from what he has seen over the past season, only two and a half yards from nose to tail. That is more than large enough to stun a man and a large horse.
He hears a rustling and the faintest of scrapings on the stone … and Adayal sits on the wall beside him. Yet he has sensed nothing.
“Why can’t I even sense you?” he asks, trying not to sound annoyed.
“You will before long,” she says. “You have grown. There is an order about you.”
“Magus Triamon has been teaching me how to use order to manipulate chaos so that the chaos does not break down the order of my body.”
“You’ve learned well. There is only a touch of the whiteness about you. If you keep working at that, and your shields, only the greatest magus would be able to tell that you are also a magus.”
Alyiakal frowns for a moment. “You don’t think the Magi’i will accept me?”
“You’re inclined to order. Even I can sense that. Do you really want to be dominated by chaos?” She smiles gently, but ironically, then says, “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’ve been looking for you all Summer and since.”
“I know, but you needed to grow. Would you like to walk through a little part of the Great Forest with me?”
“Have I learned enough to be safe?”
“Even more than that.”
“I would like that.”
“Then let us go…” She slips down from the wall into the Forest and onto the mossy ground beside the sunstone.
Alyiakal follows, and when he stands beside her, she reaches out and takes his hand. “This way.”
“Should I hold a concealment?”
“There is no need of that.” Her voice is throaty yet warm.
She leads him down a path. “Look carefully, beyond that fallen trunk…”
He studies where she has pointed, then sees a tortoise, or perhaps it is a turtle, whose shell stretches two full yards and displays a pattern of light and dark green diamonds that hold the faintest light of their own. Farther on, he sees two gold-and-black birds perched on a limb, the like of which he has never seen.
Adayal stretches a hand out. “Wait.”
Alyiakal waits. His mouth opens as a giant serpent slithers across the path some fifteen yards ahead of them, its scales a mixture of greens and browns that blend so well into the Forest that he can only make out the part of its body crossing the darker path.
In time, after she has shown him more creatures than he ever would have believed existed in such a small part of the Forest, they come to a tree whose trunk contains a small door. Adayal opens the door and gestures for him to enter.
He senses nothing within and follows her gesture. Once inside, after she closes the door, he can still see, because of a faint greenish illumination that somehow surrounds them.
“There is something else you need to learn, Alyiakal,” she says gently, turning to him. “I would not have you too innocent or too unlearned about women … or learning from rough lancers, or women of pleasure who seek only coin.” She reaches out and draws his head to her, and her lips are warm upon his.
“Slowly…” she murmurs, drawing him down onto the soft pallet he had not noticed. “Slowly … let me show you.”
Alyiakal, surprised beyond belief, does … so afraid that the moments that follow will end, but they do not, not for glasses.
Finally, she draws her garments back on and around her. “I shouldn’t keep you any longer. Try to keep some of that sweetness. The woman who best suits you will appreciate it more than you will ever know.”
The woman who best suits me? Are you not that woman? How could you not be? But he does not dare to voice that question.
“It’s time for you to go,” she says gently.
He dresses slowly, not wanting the night to end.
Then they retrace their steps through the darkness that he scarcely notices back to the wall. After a time, they both stand at the base of the wall, outside the Forest. Alyiakal looks through the darkness, sensing Adayal as much as seeing her. He remains stunned by both the warmth and the fire Adayal had shown, and touched by the gentleness behind both.
“That is how it should be between a man and a woman,” she says softly. “Never forget.”
“How could I?” Abruptly, he adds, “You’re not leaving Jakaafra and the Forest, are you?”
“No. I am part of the Forest, and it is part of me. I will always be here.”
For all of her words, he can sense a sadness and a regret.
“You must go,” she says. “It is late.”
Too late, he thinks as they separate and leave the wall in different directions.
It is well past midnight when Alyiakal slips back into the quarters, only to find too many lamps lit. He sighs, if silently, and makes his way into the study.
“Where have you been?” asks the majer.
Alyiakal inclines his head politely, hoping his father will answer the question himself, as he sometimes does.
“Out walking the wall road, no doubt, and peering into the Forest.” The majer shakes his head. “No matter.”
Alyiakal tries not to stiffen at the resigned tone of voice.
“I’ve been talking to Master Triamon. He says that you have talent, but you are too rooted in order to be a magus. You also have too much ability with chaos for the Mirror Engineers, and your interests lie elsewhere. He feels that you’d never be more than the lowest of the Magi’i, if that.”
Alyiakal does not sigh in relief, although relief is indeed what he feels, and he is surprised by that relief, even after what Adayal has said. How did she know? Except, in her own way, Adayal is as much a magus as Triamon. “Yes, ser.”
“That being so … young man, next oneday you’re leaving for Kynstaar.”
“Kynstaar, ser?”
“That’s where they take the sons of lancer officers and see if they can train them to be officers. Some of what they teach, you already know. Much you don’t. It’s time to see what you can be. There’s nothing more you can learn here. You’ll likely know more than some of the others and less than those from the high altage families.”
“On oneday? So soon?”
“There’s no point in putting it off. You’ll spend two years at the lancer officer candidate school, then a year in officer training. You’ll have to ride with the patrols to Geliendra, and then you’ll take a firewagon from there to Kynstaar. You’ll actually arrive there two eightdays late, maybe longer, but the school’s used to that, because some candidates have to travel from places like Biehl or Summerdock or Syadtar, and you only get space available in the rear section of the firewagons.” Kyal pauses. “There’s a downside to this.”
“Ser?”
“If you can’t make it through the school, you’ll spend at least four years as a lancer ranker.”
Alyiakal manages not to swallow.
“You have the skills and the ability, son. If you fail, it will be only for lack of will.”
“Yes, ser,” replies Alyiakal, although he had no idea that the cost of failure would be that drastic, but there is little point in protesting. Already, he knows to pick his battles. That much he has learned from his father, from Magus Triamon, from watching the Accursed Forest … and from Adayal.
He does know that he cannot afford to fail, whatever it takes.
On fourday, Alyiakal searches Jakaafra for Adayal, but can find no trace of her. Nor can he do so on fiveday, or sixday. On sevenday, he leaves the quarters right after dawn, determined to find her. Since he has walked all the streets of Jakaafra on the previous days, in vain, he hurries to where she had found him on threeday. She is not there. He looks to the wall, then nods. He quickly climbs the wall and stops on the top. Does he dare to enter the Forest without her protection?
Do you dare not to?
He takes some time to create both a shield and a concealment around himself, not one like he has raised before, but one more like the interlocked patterns of the great Accursed Forest creatures. Hoping that the concealment and shield will suffice, he eases himself down into the Forest and onto the shorter path, the one Adayal had led him back to the wall along at the end of their evening. He cannot see, not with his eyes, but relies on his senses. He walks as quietly as he can, not wishing to alarm any creature needlessly, but he must see Adayal one more time before he leaves for Kynstaar.
He slips around the last curve in the path before her tree bower … and senses that she stands by the door, as if she has expected him.
He hurries to her, dropping the concealment, then stops as he sees the sad smile. “Adayal … I have to leave.”
“I know. I knew it would happen before long.” She smiles warmly. “You can walk the Forest now, whenever you wish.”
Now that I’m leaving. He pushes aside the bitterness, for it will do no good. “I learned it from you.” Quickly, he adds, “I have to go to be trained as a Mirror Lancer officer … if I can be.”
“You will be, if that is what you want.”
“You and Magus Triamon both think that’s what I should do.”
She shakes her head. “Trying to be what we are not will destroy us. That is true for me, and it is true for you. Do you want to be a magus?” Her eyes meet his.
After a moment, he says, “No, but my choices are limited.” My realistic choices, anyway. When she does not speak, he asks, “Will you be here when I finish training? I want you to be with me.”
“Alyiakal, you have seen me. I cannot be far from the Forest, and you are meant for one kind of greatness. I cannot share that greatness. Nor would you be happy if I were by your side, because I would be but half there. We have different paths.”
He finds he can say nothing.
“I will walk back to the wall with you,” she says gently. “I cannot tell you how it moved me that you would enter the Forest for me.”
Alyiakal’s eyes burn, but he nods. He does not trust himself to speak.
She takes his hand in hers, and they begin to walk.
Two large tawny cougars, perhaps half the size of the great black panther-cats, appear and walk before them.
“They … they do your bidding.”
“No … they are here to honor you. For your courage and your understanding of the Forest.”
Alyiakal has his doubts, but he does not voice them.
When they reach the wall, there is a flicker, and Adayal appears as the great black panther-cat and springs to the top of the wall. Alyiakal studies her with his senses, but he can only sense what he sees. He climbs to the top of the wall, where Adayal has returned to being the black-haired, black-eyed striking woman who has loved him.
In her own fashion.
“Do you see now?” she asks softly.
He nods.
“Do great deeds, honest deeds, and do them with all your heart. You can, but they will not come soon … or easily. You know that. Do not forget it.”
After a long moment, he slips down the wall and then steps back to look at her once more.
The two tawny cougars have joined her on the top of the whitestone wall, flanking her. She looks down at him, then speaks softly, as if to a beloved, yet her words are clear in his ears and thoughts. “You are a part of the Forest, and part of it will always be with you.”
“Because of you.”
“And you,” she replies.
She stands there for a moment, then reappears as the great panther, framed by the two smaller tawny cougars. An instant later, the top of the wall is vacant.
Alyiakal just stares for long moments that seem to last forever, her words reverberating in his thoughts. We have different paths. Finally, he takes a deep breath.
After a last look at the empty wall, Alyiakal turns and begins the walk back to quarters.
Early on oneday morning, Alyiakal and his father walk through the misty air that often surrounds the Accursed Forest early in the day toward the lancer barracks—and the stables. Alyiakal carries a small duffel.
“You’ll be riding with Captain Karoun and Seventh Company as far as Eastend,” says the majer in a matter-of-fact tone, “and then with either Captain Waelkyn or Captain Taazl to Geliendra…”
While Alyiakal has occasionally ridden, usually older and calmer mounts, he has never spent a day in the saddle, or even more than two glasses, but he has no doubts that his father has arranged matters so that he will be riding with Karoun, an older captain, and one of the few who has worked his way up through the ranks.
“… If the patrols encounter Forest cats or stun lizards, stay out of the way…”
Since you won’t let me take a sabre, what else could I do?
“… but don’t let the lancers leave you behind.”
When they reach the stables, lancers are beginning to lead their mounts out, but have not begun to form up. Kyal walks toward an officer who is talking to a squad leader, then stops a good five yards away from the two … and two mounts tied to a short railing. The majer says nothing but does not approach the officer until the squad leader turns away.
“Good morning, Majer.” Captain Karoun has a lined and weathered face and looks older than the majer to whom he reports, but his thick hair is jet black without a trace of white.
“Good morning, Captain. You’ve seen Alyiakal a few times before. I appreciate your escorting him to Eastend.”
“My pleasure, Majer.”
From what Alyiakal can sense of the captain’s order/chaos flows, Karoun is neither disturbed nor pleased as he says, “You’ll be riding the bay, here. She’s solid and doesn’t spook easily. Fasten your gear behind the saddle and the bedroll there.”
“Yes, ser.” Alyiakal moves up to the mare’s shoulder, and lets her register his presence before he slowly extends a hand for her to smell. After she has satisfied herself, he pats her shoulder, firmly but not hard … and extends a trace of what he can only think of as warm order. Only then does he step back and fasten the small duffel in place.
“Time to mount up,” says the captain.
Alyiakal turns to his father. “Take care, ser.”
“The same to you, son. Let me know how you’re doing when you have time.”
“I will.” Alyiakal unties the mare, takes the reins in hand, and mounts, carefully, but not awkwardly, noting, once he is in the saddle, that there is also a water bottle in a holder.
The majer steps to the side, but Alyiakal can feel his father’s eyes on his back as he rides beside the captain toward the front of the column.
“You’re headed to Kynstaar, I hear,” says Karoun, clearly to make conversation, since he has to know Alyiakal’s destination.
“Yes, ser. The officer candidate school.” Alyiakal would like to know what the captain thinks but decides not to ask immediately. There will likely be time over the next several days.
“Do you know why the majer wanted you to ride with companies patrolling the northeast and southeast walls, rather than the west walls?”
“He never said, ser, but I’ve heard that there are more incidents with growths and Forest creatures along the northwest wall.”
“That’s true, but we could still encounter stun lizards or the black Forest panthers, and I’ll need to keep watch for those. You’ll be riding with Lancer Raenyld, in the rank behind me. If we do encounter anything, you’re to follow his orders. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ser.” Alyiakal has no doubt that Raenyld has orders to keep him clear of any action, and given that he has no weapons, that makes sense, even as he wonders if he could use what he learned from Adayal to keep a Forest creature from attacking him.
Raenyld turns out to be one of the younger rankers, and doesn’t look to be more than five years older than Alyiakal, if that.
Once the company is formed up and moving onto the whitestone road bordering the Forest wall, Raenyld asks, “Have you ever seen one of the giant black Forest cats?”
“Only from a distance,” replies Alyiakal, which is true enough, given that he hasn’t specified the distance.
“That’s the best place to see them.”
“Have you had to use your firelance against one?”
“Not yet, but I saw first squad take one down. It took the lances of three troopers, and it was a small one. That was when we were patrolling the northwest wall.”
“Keep the talk down.” That order doesn’t come from the captain, but from the senior squad leader riding beside him.
Since there is to be no idle talk, or not much of it, while on patrol, Alyiakal decides to see what he can sense beyond the wall, possibly even to sense Adayal, unlikely as it may be, only to discover he can sense little. For a moment, he wonders why, because he’s been able to sense the Accursed Forest before. Then he realizes that he has done so when he was on the top of the wall—inside the wards.
For a time, he tries to probe beyond the wards, since he feels that there must be a way, but he can find none, or perhaps his senses simply are not strong enough. Instead, he studies the lancers and their mounts, trying to discover if any show the kind of white free chaos that swirls around Magus Triamon, or the darkness of order.
Within a glass, he has studied all the lancers close enough for him to sense clearly. While a few show tiny bits of dull red in gray, he decides those instances are so small that they must be small cuts or bruises. He also can sense that the total amount of order and chaos varies slightly from individual to individual, but not by that much, and that most of it is bound in some fashion into their bodies, unlike Magus Triamon, who is surrounded with additional free order and chaos, but mostly chaos.
Almost two glasses pass without any sign of Forest creatures, trees fallen across the wall, or Forest sprouts. Then the captain says something to the senior squad leader, who in turn orders, “Company! Halt!”
Alyiakal is more than glad to dismount when that order comes and less enthused after the break when the command comes to mount once more and to form up. Over the next glass, Alyiakal concentrates on studying the mounts. The one thing he does discover is that the mare he rides seems to have slightly less order and chaos than most of the other horses, but she does not seem ill.
Because she’s older and not up to supporting a lancer in fighting Forest creatures?
That is a guess on his part, but from what his father and Magus Triamon have said about how lancers are wary of those who have any order/chaos abilities, he’s not about to ask, because he doesn’t want to reveal his small skills and a question about the mare’s age and ability to support a fighting lancer will mark him as trying to impress or complaining about the mount he has been given.
Riding for two glasses, resting and watering the horses, and then doing it all again is the pattern for the entire day, and it is close to twilight when Seventh Company reaches the lancer way station, located a third of the way to Eastend. By then, most of his muscles are sore, and his legs are unsteady for several moments when he dismounts.
Twoday and threeday are no different, except that on threeday evening he eats with the officers at Eastend and is introduced to Captain Taazl, and Third Company, which he will accompany the remainder of the way to Geliendra. Taazl is polite and formal, but, Alyiakal senses, not all that pleased to be escorting him to Geliendra.
On sixday evening, when Third Company rides into the Mirror Lancer post at Geliendra, Alyiakal studies the immaculate whitestone gateposts on the north side of the compound. Not only are they at least ten cubits tall, but they’re set far enough apart that they can accommodate two carriages abreast and support polished white-oak gates that he suspects have seldom been closed. The compound walls run at least a kay on a side.
Seeing those walls so close to the Forest wall jolts Alyiakal. For a moment, he wonders why, before realizing that their positioning, comparatively close as they are, shows so clearly the separation between the Great Forest and the life and duty of a Mirror Lancer and what lies before him.
Thinking again of Adayal, he feels his eyes burn, and he swallows.
As the column rides through the gates, the lancer beside Alyiakal says quietly, “These are the patrol gates. The impressive gates are the ones on the south side. They face the town.”
To Alyiakal, the north gates are impressive in themselves, and he nods, taking in all the white stonework as he rides to the patrol stable with the rest of the company. There he dismounts and unsaddles the mare. He is still working on grooming her, if with helpful hints from one of the rankers, when a junior squad leader wearing an immaculate green-trimmed cream-white uniform appears.
“Are you Alyiakal, the son of Majer Kyal, the officer in charge of Northpoint Post?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Just ‘Squad Leader.’ The ‘ser’s only go to officers. You’re to come with me to be signed in with the other candidate.”
Alyiakal feels stupid. He knows that. “Yes, Squad Leader.”
“This way, and bring whatever gear you have.”
Alyiakal looks at the grooming brush in his hand.
“I’ll take that,” says the ranker. “Best of fortune.”
“Thank you.” Alyiakal hands over the brush, then picks up his duffel and follows the squad leader from the stable and along one of the sunstone walks past two low buildings and into a third, then down a hallway and into a small waiting room where another young man stands. Like Alyiakal, he is black-haired, but is several digits taller, and burlier. Alyiakal has the feeling that he is also older. At least, he looks older.
Before Alyiakal can even introduce himself, a Mirror Lancer captain appears. From the officer’s apparent age, Alyiakal has no doubts that the captain is a former senior squad leader who won his rank through ability and survivability.
The captain surveys both young men, focusing more intently on Alyiakal, then asks, “You’re Majer Kyal’s son?”
“Yes, ser.”
“Good. Baertal, this is Alyiakal. Alyiakal, this is Baertal.” The captain nods to the taller youth, then goes on, “From this moment on, you’re both Mirror Lancers, either as an officer candidate, or, if you’re not suited for that, as a ranker-in-training. When you get to Kynstaar, you’ll be issued your uniforms and gear. The first eightdays there will be similar to basic ranker training, except harder because you’ll also have to keep up with your studies. You’ll need to work hard because many of those at the candidate school have had the benefit of excellent instruction and arms training.”
The captain looks to Alyiakal. “How much training in bladework have you had?”
“I can keep from getting badly bruised when sparring. I don’t know how that compares to anything.”
“That will be helpful.”
Alyiakal notes that the captain does not ask the same question of Baertal.
“There’s space for you two on the firewagon that leaves Geliendra eightday morning. You’re to remain on the post until then. Failure to do so will be considered desertion, with the appropriate consequences. Tonight and tomorrow night, you two will share a room in the officers’ quarters. You’ll also eat in the officers’ mess. Appreciate it while you can.” The captain gestures to the squad leader. “Asquall will show you around briefly. Eat immediately when the mess opens on eightday morning and have your gear with you. A squad leader will meet you there with your orders.” The captain pauses, then asks, “Any questions?”
“No, ser,” replies Baertal.
“Thank you, ser,” says Alyiakal. “I don’t know enough to ask questions.”
“Then it might be best not to say so,” replies the captain, his tone politely pleasant, but not hard.
“Yes, ser.”
“This way, Candidates,” says Asquall.
Alyiakal picks up his duffel, letting Baertal be the first to follow the squad leader from the room.
After taking Alyiakal and Baertal to their quarters to leave their gear and then providing a hurried tour of the post, Squad Leader Asquall shows them to the mess, where several undercaptains stand near one wall and talk.
The squad leader points to the end of a table. “That’s the junior officers’ table. You two sit there. But you don’t sit down until everyone else does. Stand when the officers do, and sit when they do. You’ll be served last. Don’t eat until the senior officer does, and stop eating, if you haven’t finished, when he stands and leaves.” After a pause, he adds, “At breakfast, you serve yourself, but defer to any officers.” Then he turns and leaves.
Baertal eases away from the table and toward the wall.
Alyiakal follows his example.
After a short time, Baertal looks at Alyiakal. “You haven’t said much. I don’t even know where you’re from.”
“Jakaafra. What about you?”
“I’m from here, Geliendra.”
While Alyiakal had noted that the captain seemed to know or know about Baertal, he is pleased to have his suspicion confirmed. “Have you lived here long?”
“For the past four years. Before that, my mother and I stayed with her parents in Fyrad. We couldn’t go to Inividra or Assyadt. What about you?”
“The same sort of thing, except it was the last three years.” Alyiakal isn’t about to mention the time he’d spent with his great-aunt in Pyraan, little more than a hamlet north of Westend, after his mother’s death when his father had commanded the Mirror Lancer post at Isahl.
“Your grandfather a lancer as well?” asks Baertal.
“He was. I never knew him.” That was because he’d been killed by the barbarians of Cerlyn when Alyiakal’s father hadn’t been that much older than Alyiakal now happens to be.
“Barbarians or the Accursed Forest?” Baertal’s tone is matter-of-fact, as if those two were the only causes of death for a lancer.
“Barbarians,” returns Alyiakal. “What about your grandfather?”
“My father’s the first Mirror Lancer in the family. My uncle was the second.”
“Your father must be very good, then.”
“He was. He’s stipended now. Do you have any brothers?”
“No,” replies Alyiakal. “No sisters, either. You?”
“One brother. He’s a lot older. He’s a Mirror Engineer in Fyrad.”
“Could he have been a magus?”
“He likes order and devices too much.” Baertal’s words are both amused and wistful.
“While you have different interests?”
“Good horses and pretty girls,” replies Baertal offhandedly.
“I haven’t ridden that much. Well … except in the last eightday. I rode with the patrols from Jakaafra to Geliendra.”
Baertal frowns momentarily, then asks, “Did you see any Forest creatures?”
“Not on the ride here.”
“Then you’ve seen them before? Are they more common in the north part of the Accursed Forest?”
“Only once or twice. A great black panther and a small stun lizard. They were both close to the wall.”
“And you’re still here?”
“They seemed like other animals. I didn’t bother them, and they didn’t bother me. Besides, what else could I do?” Alyiakal sees more officers entering the mess, most of whom appear to be undercaptains and captains.
“You walked that close to the wall? That doesn’t seem very smart.”
“I was careful.”
Baertal shakes his head. “Careful isn’t enough, not around the Accursed Forest.”
“Then I guess I was fortunate.”
“You can’t count on fortune, not as a Mirror Lancer,” declares Baertal firmly. “Lancers have to create their own fortune.”
“You think that lancers from altage families in Cyad don’t have advantages?” asks Alyiakal.
“At first, but that doesn’t last. Barbarians and stun lizards don’t care about family or who you know.”
Alyiakal nods, adding, “That’s certainly true.” But position and wealth can purchase skilled instruction. Just as his father has passed on what skills he can and paid a magus to expand Alyiakal’s own talents.
“You’ll see,” replies Baertal, as if he senses doubt behind Alyiakal’s words. “If you make it through training and survive your first duty post.”
That goes for you as well. But all Alyiakal says is, “I’m sure I will.”
Abruptly, the officers in the mess move to stand at places at the long junior officers’ table and a much shorter table, where a majer and three overcaptains stand.
“As you were,” orders the majer.
Alyiakal follows their example, taking his place across the table from Baertal.
When Baertal says he wants to walk around the post after dinner to stretch his legs, he has more than that in mind, but Alyiakal merely nods and says, “Have a good walk. I could use the sleep.”
That is true, since Alyiakal is indeed tired. He sleeps soundly, although he wakes briefly when Baertal enters the room they share well after midnight.
When Alyiakal rises for breakfast, Baertal is sound asleep, and Alyiakal does not wake him, but goes to the mess and eats a decent breakfast. Then he sets out to explore the post, discovering in the process that there is a section that holds modest family housing for consorted officers.
That suggests where Baertal may have been, but since the quarters are not for stipended officers, as Alyiakal already knew, it raises other questions. For the present, Alyiakal decides not to raise those questions, although the first chance he has is when he sees Baertal at the officers’ mess on sevenday evening.
“Did you have a good day?” he asks Baertal as the two seat themselves.
“Very good. What about you?”
“I explored the post. It’s rather large, and there’s a lot to see. What about your day?”
“I spent some of it with friends. I didn’t want to pass up the chance, since it will be some time before I’ll see them again.”
Once more, from the shades of chaos around the other, Alyiakal can tell that his words are less than the entire truth. “You’re fortunate to have that opportunity. Everywhere I’ve been, there’s been almost no one close to my age. I imagine there were at least a few for you when you lived in Fyrad.”
“A few. Not many.”
“Are any of them here now?”
Baertal shakes his head, then takes a small swallow of the ale in his mug.
“What do you know about the officer training in Kynstaar?” asks Alyiakal.
“It’s hard. Less than a third of those who enter leave as undercaptains.”
“What’s the most difficult part?”
Baertal shrugs. “It’s all hard. My brother says that whatever you’re the weakest at is the hardest.” He turns his attention to the emburhka dished out by the server—a fresh-faced ranker who looks no older than Alyiakal.
After the ranker serves Alyiakal, he says quietly, “Thank you.”
Baertal frowns momentarily, but says nothing.
Tired of trying to draw out Baertal, Alyiakal concentrates on eating the emburhka, which is merely spiced to be hot, without subtlety, but more than acceptable, and the small loaf of warm bread, which is actually quite good. The wine is about the same as what he has had at home. He’s glad he doesn’t have to drink the ale served to rankers, although it’s said to be decent, because he’s never much cared for lager or ale.
As on sixday evening, Baertal takes his leave after dinner and does not return to the small shared room until late.
Both wake early, but because Baertal does not speak as they wash up, dress, and head for the mess, carrying their gear, neither does Alyiakal, especially since the shades of chaos around Baertal suggest that he is somewhat agitated, although his expression is merely stolid. At the mess, the two eat quickly.
Not totally surprising, the one who escorts them from the mess to the front gates is again Asquall.
“The firewagon should be here in less than a quint,” Asquall announces. “You two will sit in the rear section.”
Moments later, two captains appear, each with a single duffel. They stand well away from the squad leader and the two candidates.
Perhaps half a quint later, Alyiakal catches sight of the arriving firewagon, the early-morning sunlight reflected off the glass wind and rain screen of the driver’s compartment as the firewagon nears the post gates. After the firewagon comes to a stop, the driver does not leave his position in the glass-fronted forward compartment, but the lancer ranker seated beside him opens the narrow side door and steps out. He opens the door to the forward passenger compartment, right behind the front wheels, and a Mirror Lancer subcommander and a majer step out.
Then the lancer announces, “Officers first.”
The two captains step forward and enter the forward passenger compartment, designed to convey four passengers comfortably.
Only then does the lancer ranker turn to Asquall and his charges. “Just two from here?”
“That’s all,” replies Asquall.
“Be more comfortable, then. Leastwise, till you get to Chulbyn.” The lancer leads Baertal and Alyiakal past the cargo compartment and the power section, with two wheels on each side, to the rear passenger compartment, where he opens the rear door. “Gear under the seat.”
Four other young men sit in the rear section, two each on the two bench seats, each of which can hold five passengers, tightly. Baertal enters first and takes the middle front-facing seat, quickly sliding his duffel underneath the thinly padded bench. In turn, Alyiakal takes the middle rear-facing seat.
Unlike the forward passenger compartment, which has large windows, the two windows in the rear, one on each side, are small. As he slides his gear under the seat, Alyiakal notices that both windows have been lowered halfway. He suspects that is all the farther down they will go. He has barely seated himself before the driver’s assistant closes the door.
As the firewagon begins to move, Alyiakal hears a faint whining, and the slight rumbling of the wheels on the sunstone of the avenue that will lead to the highway flanking the Great Canal. He can also sense what feels like a continual swirl of confined chaos from behind him.
The power compartment.
“What’s your name?” asks the flame-haired youth to Alyiakal’s left. “I’m Hyrsaal. That’s Khaarl on your other side. We’re both from Fyrad.”
“Alyiakal. From Jakaafra.”
“If you three wouldn’t mind,” says Baertal crossly, “some of us would like a chance to sleep. You might try it, too, while you can.”
Alyiakal looks to Hyrsaal, who shrugs, as if it’s of no import to him, then abruptly grins with an infectious warmth and mouths, “Once he’s asleep…”
If he ever sleeps.
Except that Alyiakal knows that Baertal will sleep, sooner or later, because they will not reach Chulbyn until dawn on oneday, and the trip from there to Kynstaar will take almost as long, not counting the time they may have to wait at Chulbyn.
He offers Hyrsaal an amused smile in return.
For the next three days, Alyiakal and the other candidates receive indifferent food and sleep fitfully as they can seated on the hard benches of the firewagon or on pallet beds at Chulbyn. Nine officer candidates finally emerge from the firewagon at Kynstaar in midmorning on threeday, each carrying a bag, satchel, or duffel of some sort.
Alyiakal is groggy and looks around the bare sunstone platform, taking in the stone walls and the low buildings to the north of the highway. To the south is a plain largely filled with golden-tan grass that is perhaps waist-high with only scattered clumps of trees. In moments, his groggy stupor lifts as the cool Autumn wind flows past him and he realizes how much cooler Kynstaar is than either Jakaafra or Geliendra. He sees that Hyrsaal appears to be shivering, possibly because the redheaded candidate wears only a light hemp shirt without an undertunic, although Alyiakal doesn’t find the wind that cold.
Or is he worried about what comes next?
Alyiakal scarcely has a moment for that speculation, because a graying captain and a squad leader appear.
“Officer candidates,” declares the captain, “I presume?”
“Yes, ser,” responds Alyiakal before Hyrsaal and Baertal do.
“Three of you can get out the proper response when you’re disoriented and tired,” the captain continues. “That should improve. The squad leader will get you signed in, assigned bunks and uniforms. Then you’ll get a basic orientation, which will last until the evening mess. Get a good night’s sleep. You’ll need it.” After a pause, he goes on, “I’ll leave you with one point. Right now, you are not officer candidates. You are candidates to become officer candidates.” The captain turns. “They’re all yours, Squad Leader.”
Alyiakal can’t say he’s surprised as he follows the unnamed squad leader to a stone building where a rank clerk takes names, checks them against a list, and provides each candidate with a card listing his barracks and bed number.
From there, the nine go to the supply building, where they’re given three sets of uniforms, underclothes, socks, and boots. The uniforms are not the crisp cream-whites of Mirror Lancers, but pale khaki brown without insignia. The boots Alyiakal is issued are dull brown, as is the belt he receives.
Next comes a visit to a lancer barber, followed by cold showers, donning uniforms, and turning over all personal gear for storage, after which the squad leader marches them to their quarters. The quarters consist of a long room in a one-story building that holds raised pallet beds, each one with a doorless chest holding open shelves and a space for boots below. The windows are unglazed, but have heavy shutters.
The squad leader demonstrates how the uniforms are to be folded and stored, then orders them to duplicate the process, following up with a polite but condescending critique of each candidate’s failures, and a reminder that bunks and chests will be inspected regularly.
Following that exercise, the nine are marched to another stone building where Alyiakal is surprised to find small desks with chairs, beside which the nine stand, as ordered by the squad leader. That surprise is succeeded by another—the appearance of a Mirror Lancer subcommander.
“As you were,” orders the subcommander, also gesturing for them to sit down and waiting for the nine to settle themselves before continuing. “You were told that you are only candidates to become officer candidates. That is true. There are two ways to become a Mirror Lancer officer, and both end here in Kynstaar. No new Mirror Lancer officer is commissioned except through a minimum of a year’s training here. Candidates who have advanced education from other sources and who are found to have the potential to become officers still must finish that education and training here, and they will join those of you who succeed in your education and training over the next two years for the final year. How you perform over the next two years will determine whether you qualify for that final year. Most of you who succeed finishing the first two years will likely succeed in the third. That has not been the case with those who will join you in that third year…”
From what Alyiakal can sense, the subcommander is being completely truthful, since Alyiakal has observed that lying usually creates an increased flurry of personal chaos.
“… some of you will silently question why we even allow the other avenue of training, when so many fail, but just as the Magi’i allow those with ability but not born into elthage families to become a magus, so must the Mirror Lancers offer an opportunity to others not born into altage families the chance to become a Mirror Lancer officer.
“Being either a Mirror Lancer officer or a magus requires discipline, dedication, and skill because each can control and wield great power. The next years will determine which of you will develop, master, and control those skills.” The subcommander offers a cold smile, then adds, “Those of you who dismiss what I have said will likely fail. Some will be injured. A few may die. That is part of the price of being a Mirror Lancer officer.” He pauses again. “Captain Traukyl will now provide the rest of your basic orientation.”
“Attention!” snaps the squad leader.
Alyiakal knows enough to remain standing while the subcommander departs and the captain enters the instruction room.
“As you were,” declares the captain, waiting for everyone to be seated before continuing. “Your time at Kynstaar will require the mastery of all manner of physical skills, not just skills in weapons and riding. It will require education not only in military matters and history, but also about the cultures and military tactics of the barbarians who live beyond the borders of Cyador. You will have to learn the basics of how magery operates and what its strengths and limits are. And those are but the beginning…”
Alyiakal listens carefully as the captain outlines what awaits him and what will be required of him. At the same time, he wonders how what he has learned of magery can be useful, besides in bladework.