Mykel had a very good idea, but he wasn't about to offer it. "That's a good question."

"Strange place, if you ask me," murmured Jasakyt.

Mykel looked from the graystone paving blocks of the road to the still-grayish green sky, and then to the rocky hillside above the road and its walls. He should have inspected the mine right after Fifteenth Company had been assigned to patrol the mine and mine road. Thenagain, there were so many things he should have done-going to spread formations immediately, sending copies of his reports to Colonel Dainyl, talking to Rachyla more, perhaps even going to Colonel Dainyl earlier about the majer. Was he always going to learn things later than he should-and perhaps pay for it the next time with his life rather than a wounded shoulder?

The three rode another half vingt before Sendyl cleared his throat. "Sir, how long are we going to be here?"

"I don't know, and I don't think the colonel does, either."

The mine gates opened as the three rode toward them and creaked shut as the three passed into the stockade that surrounded the bluff holding the mine and the crude loading docks.

Khelsyt waited beside one of the empty wagons. "You can tie your mounts there." He pointed to the loading dock. "You'll be out of here before we bring the prisoners in for the day."

Mykel dismounted and walked his mount to the dock. Already, his nose was beginning to twitch. The odor, more like a stench that combined the worst features of sewage and manure, hung heavily in the air.

Standing by the timbered mine entrance was another figure, a man clad in what once might have been green, but was now a shapeless gray-brown coverall. His expression was stern, just short of grim.

"Nophyt, this is Captain Mykel. The Myrmidon colonel sent him for a quick tour."

Mykel inclined his head slightly. "I'm sorry to bother you, but..."

"When an alector wants something, the rest of us don't get much of a choice," replied Nophyt.

"Nophyt is the head overseer, really more of a mining engineer,"

explained Khelsyt.

"Much as anyone needs an engineer here," replied Nophyt. "Bats took an old lava tube, and the branches off it, just kept hanging there and dumping their droppings into it, until it got all filled up, or mostly so. Nowthey use the caves farther north. I figure that someday, we'll be mining those. Asked Director Donasyr why we weren't already, and he said that there were only so many folks with the golds to pay for the guano, and, besides, it'd last longer if we only mined one cave at a time. Anyway, I make sure that they dig out the shit evenly so that we don't get a wall of it falling on someone. Check the rock walls, too, every night and every morning, just to make sure nothing's developed a crack."

"Do the prisoners have to chop away rock in places to get to the guano?" Mykel asked.

"Sometimes. Either floors or the places bats get into where people can't.

In another month, looks like we'll be opening up a gallery to get to a lower cave where they did that." The overseer gestured toward the weathered timbers that framed the entrance. "Better get moving."

From the bracing and the irregularities, Mykel could see that the mine entrance had once been a cave mouth.

At the entrance, Nophyt picked up a metal-and-glass oil lamp, already lit. "This is the main gallery. It was blasted out and enlarged a long time back." He walked back through the gallery to the rear, where a sloping tunnel led downward. In the middle of the tunnel floor were ruts worn into the stone. A heavy rope lay between the ruts. Mykel's eyes traced the rope to a windlass. Iron supports for the windlass had been set in holes in the lava.

"Once a cart's full they jerk the cable, and the windlass crew cranks it up."

Nophyt walked down the tunnel on the left, and Mykel followed, with the scouts behind. Khelsyt did not accompany them on the long walk down to the next level.

"Lower gallery here," announced Nophyt. "The cave branches off here.

We use smaller carts down here. Some places, we just have pits, and they hoist the shit up in baskets."

Mykel tried not to swallow or breathe deeply, but he almost felt dizzy from the stench as he followed the overseer along one of the cave branches.

Absently, he noted the irregular sides of the tunnel or cave, but the smooth floor. In some places, but far from all, the overhead was timbered andsupported, although most of the timbers looked old and cracked.

They passed a wooden barrier on the right side of the cave tunnel.

"What's that?" asked Mykel.

"Drop tube. Goes straight down. So far as we can tell, not much guano on the sides, and the bottom's a good two hundred yards, maybe more."

The overseer headed down another long and gently sloping tunnel, walking and explaining, until he stopped in an open space surrounded by darkness. Without the oil lamp held by Nophyt, which cast but a circular glow, and not a terribly strong one, the cave would have been pitch-black.

Mykel thought that the air wasn't that good, although the odor seemed less. Then, it might have been that he was getting used to the stench.

"This is the deepest part we've found so far, not so much deep as far back," Nophyt said. "We have to rotate the crews working here. They don't like it here. Say it's dangerous."

Mykel looked around, but could see nothing beyond the circle of dim light. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it might be like in the dark. Despite his closed eyes, or perhaps because of them, he could see a faint red-purple glow from somewhere, almost seeping in at the edges of his vision, if he had had vision with his eyes open. Where had he seen that color?

His eyes flew open, and the color vanished. The rock-creatures with the ancient soarer! Was that why the miners feared the depths here? "Is this one of the places where miners have disappeared?"

"Don't know. No one ever sees 'em vanish. Some have disappeared from crews working here, but we could never tell if the crew hid that they'd escaped or if they disappeared."

"If the prisoners said they disappeared... ?" asked Mykel.

"Can't trust what they say." Nophyt snorted. "They'd say anything to get out of here."

"Could you close sections like this for a while? Until people forgot?""Not here. Director Donasyr wouldn't let us. This is where the guano is oldest, most concentrated, and effective." The overseer laughed. "It also smells less and gets the best price."

"You have different types of guano?" Mykel hadn't known that.

"More like different grades. The real old stuff is almost white, powders when you hit it with a hammer. It doesn't smell much." Nophyt gestured with the lamp. "Better start back up. Won't be long before they open the gates, and it takes longer walking back. Doesn't seem bad going down.

Another thing heading back."

As he followed the overseer out of the works, Mykel knew where at least some of the missing miners had gone. There was really no way he was about to tell Dohark-or the colonel-what he thought. He certainly couldn't prove it, but if the prisoners thought that they'd be dragged into the depths and die at the hands of the rock-creatures, he could certainly .

see why some of them would do anything to escape.

60.

Dainyl looked out the window of the commander's study, taking in the shadows of a late-winter afternoon in Dramuria as they stretched across the Cadmian compound. Londi had come and gone, and Duadi had almost done the same. Quelyt had not yet flown back from Elcien, and his delayed return suggested that all was not well in Elcien. Overcaptain Dohark had reported by messenger that most of the patrols undertaken by the companies of Third Battalion had been uneventful, except that Seventeenth Company had been attacked by several squads of horsemen with longbows and arrows and was pursuing them to the north of the western road.

Dainyl had immediately sent a messenger back to Dohark, suggesting that pursuit to the west was unwise, except in cases where the horsemen could be clearly cut off. He hoped that would be sufficient, since so far there had been no sign of any of the western seltyrs' horse troopers moving east. Dainyl thought it would likely be only days, weeks at the most, before that happened. For that reason, he had also alerted Dohark that the western seltyrs had armed horse troopers who could be used against the Cadmians.

He still fretted somewhat about the troopers he and Fa-lyna hadoverflown. Marshal Shastylt would have destroyed them. Yet Dainyl didn't see what good that would have done. It would only destroy higher-level lifeforce mass, and lead to greater destruction, while not getting at the basic problem. He laughed softly. If... if he could ever discover the basic problem.

Then, there was the problem of the ancients. Much as he had tried, with his own Talent, he had been unable to recreate-or find, see, or sense-the vision of the world life-mass web that the soarer had shown him, for that was all that it could have been. The best he could do was sense, if he concentrated, the purple-pinkness of his own lifethread for less than a yard from him. Still, that was an improvement. The prediction that he would perish unless he changed still lurked in the back of his mind as well Change? How? And why?

"Sir?"

Dainyl looked up to see Quelyt standing in the open doorway to the study. He stood. "I'm glad to see you. I worried that they might have pressed you into courier duty somewhere."

The Myrmidon laughed as he stepped into the study. "We did do a message run or two to Ludar, more as a favor, while we waited." He extended an envelope. "From the marshal."

"Any other dispatches?"

"No, sir." Then the ranker grinned. "There is a letter."

Dainyl shook his head. "Sometimes, you're a brigand, Quelyt."

"Only sometimes, sir."

"What's happening in Elcien?"

"It's hard to say, sir. The other fliers think that the mess in Iron Stem is finally settled, but there are rumors that someone killed five alectors on the regional staff in Dereka. They're missing, anyway, and that's not good."

"What else?""It was a frigging cold winter in Elcien, and it's still cold. Good to get down here."

"For winter, it's been pleasant here."

"Oh... one other thing, I almost forgot. A bunch of new alectors showed up in Elcien. Zorclyt said they'd been translated from Ifryn. Most of them will be sent to Alustre, he said."

Why Alustre? Dainyl wondered. "I believe you mentioned a letter?"

"Yes, sir. The lady delivered it to me herself, just before we lifted off."

Quelyt handed the colonel a smaller and thicker envelope.

"Thank you."

"Do you have any flying you need done?"

"Nothing immediate." Dainyl lifted the dispatch from the marshal.

"Unless I have instructions from the marshal. Fa-lyna took me out on a survey of the west. The seltyrs there are raising private forces."

'Trouble everywhere."

"It looks that way."

Quelyt nodded. "We'll be ready."

After the Myrmidon ranker left, Dainyl closed the study door, and, as he walked toward the desk, opened the dispatch, again addressed to Colonel Dainyl. The Talent-seal was untouched. After reading through the third line, he blinked and reread the words, more slowly.

As submarshal you can no longer be spared just to observe what is occurring in Dramur. The High Alector of Justice has requested that you return to Elcien immediately, with both pteridons, so that you may be briefed on other matters of vital importance to the Myrmidons, as well as to all alectors of Acorus. This is a critical time, and the Highest and I will be calling upon your experience.

In addition, we need to consult on how best to handle the future of Dramur. Our scattered observations suggest that matters are not as you were led to believe and that a more unified long-term strategy isnecessary...

So far as Dainyl could tell, there had never been any strategy, just a vague set of orders to Third Battalion to do what was necessary to get rid of a few rebels. He kept reading.

Delegate responsibilities and duties as you must, and plan for a minimum absence of two full weeks.

Just as he was beginning to get some idea of the scope of the problems in Dramur, he was being recalled for consultations and strategy development? Why hadn't anyone developed a strategy before? Or had they, and it hadn't worked? Or was it working, and was Dainyl being recalled to make sure that he didn't upset what the marshal and the Highest had in mind? Yet the tone of the dispatch was neither derogatory nor threatening, and it did convey urgency, and it referred to him as the submarshal.

Dainyl set down the dispatch on the desk and opened the envelope from Lystrana. The Talent-seal was unbroken.

Dearest, The seasons do stretch out, and with spring not too far away, I wish that you were here in Elcien with me. The days have been long, and especially on the many nights that I have worked late, it would have been so comforting to come home and to see you...

Late nights mean troubles, and the kinds of troubles Lystrana dared not put into a letter, even one she had handed directly to Quelyt.

Almost a score of alectors have arrived from Ifryn in recent weeks, and a number are Table engineers who were sent to the High Alector of Engineering in Lu-dar. I overheard talk about the need for greater grid stability, and you know what that may portend...

Dainyl understood all too well. The Archon had determined that translations to Acorus and Efra had to increase significantly. Such a decision meant either the lifeforce mass on Ifryn was decreasing more rapidly than planned, or the Archon's control was once more threatened.

... Now that iron and coal production in Iron Stem have resumed...Resumed? They had stopped entirely? No wonder the marshal had always been out in Iron Stem.

... and the manufactories in Faitel have been able to move toward reestablishing full production, I have had to recalculate so many figures in the Duarches' accounts, and that has taken many long hours. I fear that too late a spring will also affect the year's crops, and that will change the revenue projections and the scope of major engineering projects possible...

Major engineering projects? What was going on in Elcien?

As always, I hope that it will not be too long before you can return, if only briefly, for my heart is empty when you are gone.

While the last words might have sounded flowery, Dainyl knew that they were anything but vacant phases. Without each other, life had less meaning for both of them.

Despite the warmth and affection wrapped around the veiled warnings, her letter disturbed him far more than did the marshal's dispatch.

Together, they suggested that matters in Elcien were anything but favorable.

He refolded her letter and slipped it inside his tunic, then headed out of the study to tell the two Myrmidons that they would leave at dawn. After that, he would need to brief Ma-jer Herryf and write a letter of instructions to Overcaptain Dohark.

61.

The two days of flying north to Elcien were long and cold, including the stopover in Southgate. For the last hundred vingts, the air was turbulent, with a bitter headwind, and among the more unpleasant flights Dainyl had made, but part of the discomfort might have been that being a passenger was always worse than being the flier.

As Falyna turned her pteridon due east for the final ten vingts over the Bay of Ludel toward Elcien, Dainyl glanced down at the waters below, choppy and cold gray, with whitecaps clearly visible from five hundred yards up. Above, high gray clouds obscured the late-afternoon sun. To the north, dark gray clouds were building into a wall advancing inexorably on the capital isle, and to the northeast the higher peaks of the Coast Rangewere solidly coated with white. Even the lower hills to the west of those peaks were heavily splotched with snow.

As they neared Elcien, Dainyl saw that a miasma of fog and smoke had settled over the isle. Only the outlines of the walls and buildings of the Myrmidon compound were visible as Falyna's pteridon spread its wings into a flare and settled onto the landing stage.

With a certain amount of relief, Dainyl set his boots on the graystones of the courtyard outside Myrmidon headquarters. The wind-icy in comparison to Dramuria- gusted around him as he unfastened his gear from behind me second saddle and slung it over his shoulder.