"Colonel Dainyl, do come in!" The voice out of the shadowed foyer behind the door was hearty, and Dainyl half expected a burly man, but the speaker was slight and rail-thin. "Might as well use my study. One place is as cluttered as another. Oh... I'm Sturwart, the current head of the council. For another season, that is."

"I'm happy to meet you, Sturwart."

"I figured it would be better for you to talk to Donasyr first. He likes to spend end days at his place out west in Cyalt. The later you talked to him, the less he'd tell you." Sturwart scurried ahead of Dainyl down a corridor and through another doorway. He gestured at the study, more spacious than the conference room at the mining building, with a desk stacked with papers, a small square table with three chairs, half-filled with papers, and two bookcases overflowing with volumes. The two windows were high andnarrow, and open.

Dainyl settled into one of the chairs at the table, gingerly.

Sturwart dropped into the chair across from the alector. 'Anyway, you probably know as much about the mine as j Donasyr does. He's never out there, just collects the coins, writes the reports, and leaves the running to the overseers and the guards. Today, he'd tell you less than he would most days because he'd already have been in Cyalt if he hadn't had to talk to you."

"His family is there?"

"Hardly! His wife likes the big place on the hill here in Dramuria better.

He's got a girl in Cyalt, more like his daughter's age. Everyone knows it.

Then, with a wife like his-she's a beauty all right, but got a tongue like a sabre- I'm not sure I wouldn't be tempted that way."

"You say that the overseers run the mine?"

"Every way that counts, every way that counts... and most of them are good men. Do the best they can. Sad business when people get sent there."

"Some have said that justicer sentences to the mine are more frequent when Donasyr needs more miners," suggested Dainyl.

"I've heard that for years. Heard it about Haldynt-he was the one the guilds picked to run the mines before Donasyr. I can't say it might not happen now and again, but mostly it's the other way around. When there are too many young men without places to go-apprenticeships, or the Cadmians, or family lands-they get in trouble, drink too 1 much, fight too much, and they get sent to the mine. The families complain that the justicer was told to get more miners. The justicer denies it, and that just makes people think that he's lying."

Dainyl got the impression that Sturwart was telling the truth. "That's always a problem."

"Always been a problem, and always will be. What else can I tell you?"

"Who gets the golds after the merchanters in Southport or whereverpay for the guano?"

"They come to the council, most of them. The mine belongs to Dramuria, the town itself, the crafters and guilds and partly to a few of the big growers. They have a fifth. Been that way forever. The council approves Donasyr's requests for what he's spending. He has a good year, and he gets a bit extra. Not a lo,t extra, though. Don't want him holding back on food to the miners, or tools. That'd be a bad business. We also pay for one of the Cadmian companies."

Dainyl had not known that. "What can you tell me about the troubles at the mine?"

Sturwart tilted his head and paused for a time, the longest he'd been silent since Dainyl had been in the council building. Finally, he spoke, more slowly. "You know... I wish I knew. Production's down, but the miners aren't getting fed any less. Went up there a bunch of times to check. Even went when no one knew I was coming. I've been talking to the ones whose terms were over, too. They won't talk. Scared-like, but they're not scared of the guards or the overseers. Something's going on in the mine, I'd say, and it's happening when the overseers aren't watching."

Sturwart looked straight at Dainyl. "Couldn't prove it any way that I know."

"We received a report about disgruntled miners starting a revolt..."

Sturwart laughed, shaking his head. "Donasyr keeps track of that, and so do we. Always be folks who won't learn that life has rules. You work, or you go hungry. You don't want to work at what's here, you join the Cadmians, or go someplace else, or you get stuck in the dyeworks or the mine. Some won't learn, and they end up in the mines, and the rules there are tougher. Some can't take it, and they try to escape. There were fewer than twenty who weren't accounted for in the last year. Don't know about this year.

Even if they all made it, twenty of that kind wouldn't begin to start a revolt."

Dainyl nodded, sensing once more that the council head believed his own words totally. "Why do the growers own a fifth of the mine?"

"Years back, town needed golds to finish the road paving and thebuildings up there. The growers around here put up the coin, and they get a fifth of the proceeds after expenses. Or they can get more of the guano at a reduced price, or some combination."

"Do any of them take the guano?"

"Some, like Ubarjyr, use it on their casaran plantations."

"Where could I find the heads of the guilds?" Dainyl had strong doubts he'd learn anything from the guild directors, jut the Highest had suggested he talk to them.

"You won't find Bleamyr or Tulcuyt today or tomorrow. I ;an arrange for you to meet them here on Londi, say around lie ninth glass, in the morning."

"I'll be here," replied Dainyl, rising.

"That's for certain. One can always count on the Myrmi-ions. Always can." Sturwart rose and headed toward the doorway and the corridor beyond. "Any other questions you lave, I'll be here, too, on Londi."

"I'm sure there will be some. I appreciate your patience md willingness to be here."

"Glad to be of help. Without you, we wouldn't have a . whole lot, now, would we?"

Dainyl smiled again as he left the building, glad to be out n the warmth of the white sun, under the cloudless silver-reen sky. He mounted, then nodded to Sturwart, before ooking at Rhasyr. "Back to the compound."

"Yes, sir."

Dainyl could tell that the stalwart Rhasyr was relieved to )e heading back to the compound, both from his feelings md from the fact that he and the others kept blotting their wows. Dainyl was enjoying the day, one of the most com-fortable he'd experienced in almost a season, but it was unseasonably hot, even for the local Cadmians.

After they crossed the bridge and headed up the wide and curving incline toward the compound, ahead to his left, Dainyl sensed someoneradiating fear. He could not quite locate the source, and as the bay carried him onto the flat of the bluff, with the compound little more than two vingts ahead, his eyes and Talent scanned the area to his left, amid the nut trees.

Crack, crack.

He was rocked back in the saddle, his right shoulder twisted violently.

He hadn't even been able to locate the sniper. Even so, the light-cutter was in his left hand almost instantly, and his eyes jerked to his right, his Talent probing for the source. He could sense a single man on the low rise in the middle of the trees less than a hundred yards away, and another sprinting away.

Drawing on the lifeweb, he raised a deflection shield around his head and neck as he turned the bay off the road.

"Sir!" called Rhasyr from behind him.

The man remaining raised his rifle once more, but this time the shot went wide, as did the third and fourth shots.

Dainyl was less than thirty yards away when, abruptly, the man dropped the rifle, next to another weapon lying on the clay. One hand went to his belt, then to his mouth. He swallowed and smiled as Dainyl reined up. He was not wearing anything like a uniform, just a shapeless gray short-sleeved shirt, and gray trousers-and sandals, rather than boots. His beard was unkempt and his brown hair greasy and long.

Dainyl glanced to the north, but trying to find the other shooter would have been difficult, and he needed to find out what he could from the one at hand. "Why did you fire at me?" Dainyl kept the light-cutter aimed at the man, even as he tried to sense if there were others around besides the man who had fled. He found no one. Behind him, he could hear the three Cadmians.

"To kill you. You are a monster. All of you are monsters."

"All of who?"

"You alectors. You do not belong here.""Who told you that?" probed Dainyl.

"Those who know, even better than you." The man swallowed convulsively, again. "You... will... see."

Dainyl could see his lifeforce fading. Then the man pitched forward, dead.

"Sir?" called Rhasyr. "What happened?"

"He shot at me," explained Dainyl. "He swallowed something-poison."

A look of surprise and horror passed between the Cadmi-ans.

Dainyl did not show the surprise he felt. It had been years since anyone had fired at him. The bullet had flattened against the lifeforce-reinforced uniform tunic. While it had not penetrated the tunic, the fabric had spread the impact across the front of his upper chest and shoulder, and he would have an enormous bruise across his chest and shoulder in the days to come, even after drawing on the lifeforce web.

"Get his body and carry it back to the compound. His rifle, and the other one there, too."

"Ah... sir... ?"

"Whatever he swallowed won't hurt you." Dainyl waited as one of the junior Cadmians dismounted, recovered the rifles and handed them to Rhasyr, then hoisted the body of the man across the front of his own saddle.

When the Cadmian had remounted, Dainyl turned his mount back toward the road... and the compound. While he hated to draw lifeforce, he left the physical shield in place.

Lystrana had warned him, and he never underestimated her abilities.

He just hadn't expected an attack from such a quarter and so soon.

The most puzzling aspect of the day had been the man who had shot at him, then killed himself. There were always some who disliked alectors.

That was to be expected. What had been so unusual had been the man's words. He clearly had been indoctrinated somehow, and whoever haddone the indoctrination had told him only part of the truth. Alectors certainly were not native to Acorus, but neither were the indigens nor the landers. So who was behind the attempt? Did they really think that they could kill more than a handful of alectors? What good would that do-for anyone?

Dainyl couldn't say he understood, but he knew he needed to, and quickly.

17.

Immediately after breakfast on Decdi, Quelyt and Dainyl were airborne under high and hazy white clouds, soaring northwest from the Cadmian compound toward the jagged peaks and spires of the Murian Mountains, where lush greenery alternated with black and red rock.

Dainyl leaned slightly left to get a better view of the road to the mine.

His right shoulder sent a jolt all the way across his body. He could only hope that the soreness and stiffness would subside within a few days.

Majer Herryf and the Cadmians were trying to identify the dead man, and to see if the rifle-which was clearly Cadmian issue-had come from the garrison at Dramuria. Dainyl doubted that it could have come from anywhere else, but if it had, he was facing a much bigger problem.

He studied the road that led to the guano mine, empty except for two wagons rumbling downhill toward Dramuria. Once below the switchbacks just southeast of the mine, the road traveled straight along a ridgeline leading southeast to Dramuria, through the town, and to the high-walled covered bins at the southeastern section of the docks, where the guano was stored waiting for shipment to Southgate or the river ports of the Vedra.

Even from the air, the mining compound looked secure. The compound was set on a triangular bluff with the Mu-ralto River below. The western end of the bluff was blocked by a stone wall with a single gate. A second wall with another gate crossed the bluff about a third of a vingt to the west of the first. The space between the two was bare red clay. There were no walls on the top of the bluff, just the cliffs to the river below.The cliffs that dropped to the river from the bluff were sheer, and at their base was a rocky shingle that sloped into j the river. The stone at the base was wide enough that diving into the water from the bluff would have been impossible, and the height of the bluff, a good hundred yards, would have made climbing down extraordinarily difficult.

'Toward the mine, now!"

The pteridon's wings lifted it into a climb as it headed to the northwest.

The mine was even less to look at-a single cavelike opening, around which was a circular area of flattened rock and clay. From that apron a narrow road wound down from a single guarded gate through four switchbacks. Carts were pulled out of the mine by teams of miners in harnesses, then dumped from a ramp into the guano wagons.

Three wooden guard towers ringed the apron, and a stockade fence joined the towers and ran from the innermost towers to clifflike sections of the mountain. The only exit was through the gate to the road beside the southern guard tower. If the guards were distracted, an extremely agile miner might get over the fence, but the sides of the rock apron were totally exposed, and it seemed highly improbable that large numbers of miners could have escaped.

The colonel looked back and studied the road. Between the mine itself and the miners' compound below, the road was enclosed by a stone wall on both sides, and beyond the wall were steep slopes and open rock faces. As the Cadmian captain had told Dainyl, there was one bridge, over the gorge to the northwest of the compound.

"Quelyt? Can you circle up around some of the lower peaks here?"

"Yes, sir."

The pteridon climbed once more, circling up and toward a rocky spire several vingts due west of the guano mine. Dainyl could see another cave, higher and to the west, and could sense a concentration of lifeforce-more bats, and another source of guano in the future.

The Murian Mountains were not that high, rising between two and three thousand yards above the sea. Flying above the higher summits, with several hundred yards to spare, was close to the highest point apteridon could fly. Above four thousand yards, and less over desert areas or ice and snow, the pteridons could not draw enough lifeforce to hold altitude-or sometimes, as the earliest Myrmidons had unfortunately discovered, to exist at all.

Dainyl tried to gather in a sense of the lifeforces. There was certainly life there, but, with the exceptions of another two bat caves and several bird rookeries, not the concentrations that would have marked small settlements or a rebel camp.

Then... after several circles of the rocky spire, for an instant, just an instant, Dainyl sensed two flashes of lifeforce-traces he had never sensed before. One was a faint red-violet, and the other, nearly a mist somewhere beneath him, was golden green.

"Can you come down a little?" he called to Quelyt.

"Not much, sir. Could hit a downdraft here."

"As much as you can, then."

Quelyt was being more cautious than Dainyl would have been, but then, the pteridon was carrying double, and Quelyt wasn't that familiar with the terrain.

After another lower circle, during which Dainyl could sense nothing, he called to the ranker, "You can head back to the compound now."

"Yes, sir."

As the blue-winged flyer soared down and to the southeast, Dainyl wondered what creature-or creatures-could have a red-violet and golden green lifeforce. Red-violet wasn't that different from pteridons, but it had not been the same. Dainyl knew pteridons. And he'd never sensed anything golden green. Ifryns all were purplish, if in different shades, and landers and indigens ran from black to yellowish brown. Yet the contact had been so brief that he wasn't certain what he had sensed. He couldn't report that to the marshal, not when he'd been so careful to hide the extent to which Lystrana had been able to help him develop his Talent.

By the time the pteridon settled onto the stones of the Cadmian courtyard, it was close to midday, and pleasantly warm despite the highhazy clouds.

Dainyl dismounted, then turned to Quelyt. "Thank you. I may need your help later."

"Any time, sir. Not as though we're doing dispatch flying here."

"One of you may have to do that, when I have to send a I report to the marshal."

"We figured that, Colonel." Quelyt grinned. "The marshal always wants reports."

"We'll see." After a smile and a nod, Dainyl turned and walked swiftly across the sun-warmed stones of the courtyard to the headquarters building. The compound remained almost empty, except for the end-day duty squads and officer. He doubted that he would find Majer Herryf in his study, even though he had asked the majer to make sure that the dead man and the rifle were investigated immediately.

Before Dainyl had gotten three steps into the building, the duty squad leader rose from his desk in the foyer. "Colonel, sir, Captain Meryst is standing by for you, sir. His study is the second one on the left."

"Thank you." Dainyl wasn't at all surprised. Herryf was the type to delegate anything that infringed on his time.

Even before the colonel reached the study door, the captain was on his feet, half-bowing in respect. "Colonel, sir." Captain Meryst was not the one Dainyl had met before. Unlike Herryf and the other young captain, Meryst was fair-skinned, if not white like an alector, with small freckles across his face. He was tall for a lander, close to two yards, and painfully thin.