"If there is anything else, you'll know. As always, you must behave and act as if the highest of all alectors are the Duarches."

Why was the Highest mentioning that now? It was an unspoken code, and breaking that code had led to more than a few alectors' deaths in the early years. Had someone let the secret slip? Was that the source of the revolt?

"Enjoy your time away from Elcien." The Highest nodded to dismiss Dainyl.

The colonel half bowed, took a pace backward, and gave a last bow before turning and making his way back to the stairs.

As he climbed the steps and crossed the halls, more than a few thoughts swirled through Dainyl's mind. From what had been said, and not said, conditions on Ifryn were becoming even less favorable far earlier than anticipated. Dainyl suspected that the lifeforce mass there was declining precipitously. That, in turn, meant that the Duarches of Acorus were being pressed to build lifeforce more quickly. More coal would have helped, as would more of the fertile bat dung from Dramur. Instead, there was less of each, and using the pteridons would only draw more heavily on the world's reserves. The Highest was planning to use Cadmian lives, if necessary, to reduce such a drawdown.

Dainyl would have preferred to talk over his suspicions with Lystrana, but the Highest might well learn if he did- and that was not something Dainyl was about to chance, not after all the tens of years it had taken him to become a colonel of Myrmidons on Corus-and certainly not after what had befallen the submarshal.

He was also aware that his assignment was a cross between a test and an opportunity and that the Highest did not wish him to have theadvantage of Lystrana's knowledge and wisdom.

He walked down the stone steps from the Hall of Justice to the waiting duty coach.

12.

After muster on Duadi, Mykel conducted a gear inspection before returning to his study in the headquarters building. There, he took out the folders he had found earlier-those of the two rankers in his company from Dramur-Polynt from third squad and Chelosyr from fifth squad.

After taking a last look through the folders, he wrote up three more of the individual training reports as he waited for Bhoral and the two rankers.

Then there was a knock on the door. "Sir?"

"Come on in." Mykel stacked his papers, stood, and watched as the senior squad leader ushered the two rankers into the study, closing the door after them.

Polynt was tall, angular, blond-and looked even younger than Mykel's brother Viencet. Chelosyr wasn't that much shorter than Polynt, but he was brown-haired, square-faced, stocky, and muscular, and seemed almost squat in comparison.

"You both know that we're headed to Dramur." Mykel studied the two.

Polynt moistened his lips, while the slightest hint of a smile hid in Chelosyr's eyes.

"Your records show that you're both from there. Is that right?"

"Yes, sir." The responses were almost simultaneous.

'Tell me about the mines there."

Polynt looked at Chelosyr.

The older and more muscular ranker shrugged, then looked at Mykel.

"That's one reason why I signed up with the Cadmians, sir. Maybe, it just mighta been me, but always seemed to me that when they got short of miners, lots of fellows all of a sudden got caught doing things they said they hadn't and ended up serving terms in the mines. Fellows like me,younger sons of smallholders, folks who don't have a craft or much coin.

Figured that I'd get a better deal in the Cadmians, and couldn't get much worse than staying in the shambles outside Dramuria. 'Sides, don't care what they say, that bat dung really stinks."

"How did they get short of miners?"

"Miners die. Knew of a couple got buried. Others got sick. Some couldn't take it and ran for the high mountains and the jungles. Guards got most of them--killed 'em-but some always got away. Not much of a life there, either, always looking over your shoulder."

"The ones who got away-did any of them get hold of rifles or weapons?"

"Don't know, sir. Never knew any, just heard stories."

Chelosyr knew more than that, but Mykel looked to Polynt. "What can you add?"

Polynt glanced from Chelosyr to Bhoral, then to the captain. Finally, he began, his voice low. "Heard tell... just heard, sir... could be that there's someplace worse than the mines. Couldn't think what it'd be. Dust...

there's dust everywhere. Stinks, worse'n you can imagine. Takes years for the smell to leave anyone lucky enough to live through a term there.

Guards there, they got whips with iron tips, leave a man's back wide open with one lash. Then the nightwasps get in the wounds. Hurts and itches so bad men'll throw themselves downshaft..."

Mykel had suspected something of the sort, but suspecting and hearing were not the same. He waited until Polynt finished before asking, "What's Dramuria like?"

Again, Polynt deferred to Chelosyr.

"Sort of like a cleaner version of Northa, except it's got some big houses on the hills, and it's a port... ships that carry out the bat dung, they bring back iron stuff, and tin and stuff that won't hold the stink. Other ships, they bring in cloth and regular cheese, wines..."

"Cheese?" asked Mykel."No milk cows on Dramuria, sir. Nightwasps bite 'em, and they waste away. That's what they say. Some half-tame aurochs for meat."

"... won't let folks burn out the nightwasps, either," added Polynt.

"That's 'cause they got a real sweet honey the factors make into a special drink, some kind of honey-brandy."

Mykel kept asking questions. In the end, he didn't learn that much more.

Once the two rankers had left, Mykel turned to the senior squad leader.

"Anything else I should know?"

"I'm having Fessyt keep a close eye on Kalosyr until we're embarked."

"Woman trouble?"

"The idiot married a former pleasure girl from Northa. He says she's a former pleasure girl. I think she still is. She's betting he'll get it in Dramuria, and she'll get his back pay."

"How many others has she married?" asked Mykel dryly.

"Who knows? If he comes back, she'll have the marriage canceled on some pretext. If he doesn't..." Bhoral shook his head. "At least, he's not a squad leader with more than ten years in. This way, if it comes to that, there's no widow's settlement."

"What else?"

"We're short two mounts for replacements, but we should have them by Quinti..."

After Bhoral left another half glass later, Mykel stood, then left his study. He walked down the corridor, pausing outside the last doorway on the north end. He pressed down on the lever, opened the door, and stepped inside. The head-quarters library wasn't that large, a room three yards by five with shelves against all the walls and a set of back-to-back bookcases in the middle of the room.

After searching through the shelves, he finally found a thin volume with a lacquered cover, entitled Geography of Acorus.It took him a quarter of a glass to find the section on Dramur, and less than half that to read through it. There were no maps of the isle, and only a paragraph or so describing it.

... the isle runs close to five hundred vingts from the northern tip to the southern cape, but is no more than a hundred and fifty vingts at its widest. The Murian Mountains run down the center of the isle, extending from the northern headlands to Mount Dramanat, a volcano located some fifty vingts north of the southern cape. The mountains are rugged, their rock unstable, and have never been fully explored. The principal products of Dramur are guano and dyestuffs from shellfish, which come from the eastern side of the isle. Although the lands to the west of the mountains are fertile and suited to a number of crops, the main product is shimmersilk, from the golden spinning spider. The only sizable town or city is Dramuria, located on a natural harbor on the southeast side of the isle some seventy vingts north of the southern cape... less than half a score of other towns and no more than a score of villages and hamlets...

Mykel blinked. That was it. There was more about mere towns elsewhere, such as Hyalt in Lanachrona, than about an entire isle.

He shook his head. As usual, the books hadn't been much help.

13.

In the dim light of the sitting room on the main floor of the house, Dainyl took a last sip of the brandy, then set the small goblet on the side table. "It's not bad." He stretched, lifting his long legs just off the green carpet, then let himself settle back into the armchair whose legs would have been too long for all but the tallest landers. "The landers do make good brandy."

"In addition to boosting the lifeforce of Acorus, you mean?" asked Lystrana.

"Someone has to. Although we need it, we certainly can't generate enough to sustain us."

"That's what the landers and indigens are for."

"And for making Acorus a better place for us." Dainyl picked up the goblet and took another sip. "It is good.""Better than good, actually," replied Lystrana, "although Kylana is always claiming that everything here is second-rate compared to Ifryn."

"She might know. We were born here. She's one of the few recent translations who supposedly held a position of import in Illustra."

"Supposedly?" Lystrana laughed. "You mean that you have your doubts about Kylana?"

"No more than about her husband. He knows far more than he ever lets on. I wish I dared ask him about Tyanylt, but that wouldn't be wise."

"No, dearest, it would not be. Unlike the Duarchs, he does not have a loyalty imprint, but he would still report that."

Dainyl wouldn't have minded Zestafyn or the Duarch knowing some of the details of what had happened, but not his involuntary involvement.

"Kylana bothers me. She's like all the others who've translated here recently. If it's not from Ifryn or if it hasn't been praised as the best in Illustra, then it must not be very good. Against that,, how can we compare?"

"We can't, but there aren't more than a few translations every year."

"No. Ifryn's comfortable, and no one wants to take the risks-not until they don't have any choices."

"Of course. That's why the fieldmasters developed shadow matches. So they could imprint knowledge without the risks of leaving Ifryn and its comforts."

"They don't always take. Even when they do... I don't think I'd want to be either of the Duarchs," mused Dainyl. "Why would anyone want to have to have a partial shadow match?"

"You don't want power enough, dearest. They are those with great Talent who wish to be duarch, and who aspire to being Archon one day if the master scepter comes to Acorus, and they must have some check imposed on them to ensure their loyalty."

Dainyl snorted. "Shadow matches, loyalty imprints... all that misses the point."Lystrana laughed. "What point? I don't think you made it."

"My point was going to be"-Dainyl paused and raised his eyebrows dramatically-"comparisons are dangerous. We know that translation changes appearance. Does it affect taste? Smell? How would we know? If things smell the same, is that because they do, or because a translated body senses smells relative to the new world?"

Lystrana held her glass, sniffing the brandy. "There isn't a good answer to that. It's subjective, and I'd subjectively say that this brandy is better than any we've had before. That shows improvement. Besides, we're still Ifryn, even if we're here. Until we have the master scepter here, we're still linked to Ifryn and the Tables."

Dainyl stretched again, stifling a yawn. "I suppose we'd better get some sleep..."

Lystrana straightened in her chair, but made no move to rise. "You're leaving tomorrow, and you haven't said much about your assignment. Are you fretting about it? It's not like you to be so quiet." Her eyes did not leave Dainyl's.

"There isn't much to say. I've told you what I know." He shrugged. 'The Cadmian Third Battalion is being posted to Dramur. I'm being assigned to observe and report. That's one of the occasional assignments that fall to colonels, especially those acting as submarshals."

Lystrana laughed. "And the marshal wants to see just what you can do without him or me looking over your shoulder."

Dainyl grinned. "Marshal Shastylt never said anything like that." The Highest had, but he didn't have to tell Lystrana that. "What I don't understand is why, if they want to observe what I do, they're sending me to Dramur. The Highest can use a Table to look anywhere, but the Tables don't show alectors or anyone using Talent. So how can they observe what I'm doing, unless they have another alec-tor there?"

"You're not known to have much Talent, not beyond strong shields and flying," Lystrana said. "Usually, when alectors are given observation assignments, they choose those known to be Talented."

Dainyl had thought about that. "That suggests that they don't think Icould detect another observer? Or does the marshal wish to see if common sense can replace Talent?"

Lystrana raised a single eyebrow, and Dainyl raised both. He couldn't do just one, the way she could. They understood each other perfectly.

After a moment of silence, Lystrana asked, "Did you know that payments for the guano have dropped off in the last weeks, but those for the purple dyes haven't?"

"No, I didn't." He could have guessed about the guano, with what he did know, but he hadn't thought about the comparison between guano and dyestuffs. "Who pays for the guano?"

"Generally, the agricultural factors in Southgate, Tem-pre, and Borlan.

They resell it to the lander growers. By using mals to mine it, the Duarches are effectively subsidizing the final prices." Lystrana did not quite look at her husband. "That's another way of subsidizing the growth of lifeforce mass. The more crops that are grown, the more they warm the world. It's not that simple, but it does work that way."

Dainyl knew he had to be careful, but he didn't see that talking about lifeforce mass would violate the Highest's orders. "Is there any relation between the amount of guano used and the increase in higher lifeforce generated?"

"There has to be, but I don't know what it is. Those at Lyterna would know. That's what they study, or part of it. Everything ties together. That's why we've pushed things like coal mining. Burning the coal helps warm the air, and in time those vapors and particulates help stimulate plant growth. Using coal also means that fewer trees are cut, and the older growth trees also boost lifemass more than newer growth. The landers still don't understand that replanting isn't the same, not for centuries. The same is true for iron and steel, and stone and brick. The more structures that are built of those, the less wood that is used, and that is more important over time, because stone structures last longer." She laughed apologetically. "I wouldn't even try to estimate how guano production and lifeforce mass growth might relate, except that lifeforce is like a pyramid.

It takes a broad base of lower lifeforce to support a narrower base of a higher level, and that supports a narrower base above that..."

"And we're at the top of the pyramid, siphoning off the lifeforce thathelps support us."

"So far as we know," Lystrana replied. "How would we recognize something higher?"

That was a good question, one for which Dainyl didn't have an answer.

"Would we want to recognize something superior? Or would we be like Kylana, always insisting that whatever it was that was labeled good in Illustra was the best?"

"Be careful. Her husband does have the Duarch's ear."

"And I have yours, which is even better." Dainyl rose from the chair, smiling and moving toward his wife, then extending a hand.

Lystrana took it, although she did not need it.