"L. E. Modesitt - Alector's Choice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Modesitt L E)

papers lay strewn on the green marble floor, as if the marshal's hand had
knocked them from the desk as he had fallen.
Once inside the study, Dainyl could sense the marshal's lifeforce--weak, but
steady--and that he was breathing. Submarshal Tyanylt was not breathing. As
Dainyl watched, his lifeforce and aura finished fading, then vanished. Within
moments, all that remained on the smooth green marble floor of the study were
Tyanylt's uniform, sidearm, and boots.
Dainyl swallowed. While he'd seen more than a few Cad-mians, and other landers
and indigens, die over the years, he had only seen a handful of Myrmidons die,
their bodies vanishing into dust nearly instantly--in accidents and once after
a death sentence for gross negligence--but he'd never seen a high-ranking
Myrmidon or alector die. That just didn't happen, and certainly not in the
Myrmidon marshal's study.
The marshal groaned, faintly, and Dainyl immediately knelt. He could sense no
broken bones or severe internal injuries. So he gently turned the marshal onto
his back and waited.
Within several moments, the marshal's lifeforce had purpled into greater
strength, and his breathing was steadier. Shortly, his eyes opened.
Dainyl helped him to his feet. With his shimmering black hair, unaging
alabaster face, and violet eyes, the marshal looked no different from any of
the other most senior alec-tors, save that he was a span or so taller than
Dainyl's two and a half yards. Shastylt's eyes flickered to the clothing and
boots on the floor. His lips tightened slightly, but he said nothing as Dainyl
helped him into the chair.
Dainyl waited while the marshal caught his breath.
"Has anyone else been in here?" Shastylt finally asked.
"No, sir. I sensed something, and when no one answered, I came in and closed
the door behind me."
The marshal nodded slowly, his deep violet eyes fixing on Dainyl.
Neither alector spoke.
Dainyl waited, holding his Talent shields, not certain how the marshal might
react.
"You do understand, Dainyl?"
"Yes, sir." Dainyl understood all too well. In whatever had transpired before
he entered, Tyanylt had crossed the marshal--and paid the price.
"You have always been cautiously decisive. That is a good characteristic." He
swallowed, then coughed, straightening in the chair. "You may not know this,
but the submar-shal was several decades older than I."
There was no reason Dainyl would have known. Alectors never showed their age,
holding the same appearance from early adulthood until death, until that time
when they could -no longer hold their lifeforce.
"He was deeply concerned about some trends he was seeing all across Corus, and
he could see that his lifeforce was failing."
Dainyl knew that the marshal was lying, and that Shastylt knew that Dainyl
recognized that. The colonel nodded. "I just felt something and knew something
had happened."
Shastylt cleared his throat. "Tyanylt and I have both known that Acorus faces
a transition in the next few years, one that will change everything."
Every alector knew that. Ifryn was failing, as its lifeforce was drained away,
and in the next decade the Archon of Ifryn--based on the recommendation of the