Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 1 - Ring of Lightning

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Excerpt from Darius' History of Rhomatum

Reconsidered, by Berul dunSegri, written and published in

the year 284 after the Founding and found in the private

library of Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric, 18th

Princeps of Rhomatum.

. . . It is frankly naive to accept any written history as abso-

lute fact, as all events are filtered at least once through the

eyes of the participants and again through the eyes of the

recorder. Even if the recorder and participant are one and

the same, written history remains a record twice removed

from fact, as one must always interpret one's experiences in

retrospect, and one is never quite the same before or after

the interpretation, much less the events themselves.

With regard to the history of Rhomatum, this limitation is

particularly evident in the decades surrounding the Founda-

tion. We have a paucity of documentary evidence regarding

thepresumablydecades of events and thoughts that led

to the Darian Exodus from the ancient city of Mauritum

and the founding of our own fair city. This dearth of knowl-

edge may be partly attributed to the inevitable attrition of

sources over three centuries and the likelihood that the most

interesting sources remain in Mauritum, inaccessible to this

conscientious scholar. Yet these are not the only reasons for

our ignorance, nor are they the greatest. Darius Rhomandi

himself, our city's founder, must be judged the architect of

our ignorance.

By his own decrees, in the thirty-third year after the

Founding, Darius severed his creation from the city which

had created him. With a single stroke of his pen, our

Founder proclaimed his own recounting of the Founding

and his own memories of Mauritum, which he'd set forth in

lus three-volume History of Rhomatum were all the past

Rhomatum needed for the future. All other substantial evi-

dence of Mauritum was henceforth banned in Rhomatum.

Books were burntnot just the tomes of interpretive his-

tory Rhomatum's first settlers transported into Rhomatum

along with their other baggage, but letters, private diaries,

and all the other intimate documents of people in their own

time, without which the conscientious historian is reduced

to evidence scarce removed from rumormongering, hearsay,

and gossip.

Having excised their Mauritumin past from Rhomatum's

collective consciousness, our Founder then signed the second

decree of the Reformation, thereby sealing his city's fate of

isolationist ignorance.

I speak, of course, of the establishment of the Darian cal-

endar which, within the limits of nature (since not even Da-

rius could adjust the speed with which we circle the sun),

divided the year into nine equal months of four equal weeks

of nine days. To those seven (and sometimes eight) embar-

rassingly inescapable intercalary days, he assigned the sole

state-sanctioned holiday, the now notorious Transition Day

Festival.

In his ongoing attempts to salvage our collective con-

sciousness from the "insidious effects of unconscious aggran-

dizement," Darius declared those months and days be

named not for forgotten kings, like Mauritum's fourteen un-

equal months; nor ancient gods like the eight days of Mauri-

tum's week; but numbered, simply and rationally, beginning

with the day Darius himself set the rings of Rhomatum

into motion.

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Today is the third day of the second week of the seventh

month of the 283rd year after the Founding. But what day

is it in Mauritum? I do not know. No one in Rhomatum

doeslest he admit illegal commerce with our ancestral city.

Oh, Darius! The good you did for your children and your

children's children when you set the clocks and calendars of

Rhomatum running on their own time was a curse upon

historiansas well you knew it would be! From the lands

beyond our own ley-determined borders we have a plenitude

of tales, nothing more. No kernels of dates or documents

which a conscientious historian might plant and nurture into

a hedge linking the here and now of Rhomatum to the there

and then of Mauritum.

Yet I, Berul dunSegri, shall try to piece together some

understanding ofMauritum's ancient pastand by painstak-

ing extraction, some notion of how the Rhomatum I know

and love came to be.

. . . [We] know Mauritum's ring legacy goes back a thou-

sand years and more, and Rhomatum's a mere three hun-

dred. This simple fact would indicate that we did indeed

originate, physically, culturally, and technologically, from

Mauritum. While this might seem obvious, one must remem-

ber that Darius controls our knowledge, and so our ability

to logically extrapolate from a given set of information. Real-

izing where our beliefs originate helps us to examine their

inherent reliability.

. . . [The island off Maurislan in general, and the city of

Mauritum in particular, was, by all available evidence, the

birthplace of the leythium ring disciplines around which

Rhomatum society is structured. While we've no reason to

presume the leylines and nodes which provide the basis for

those disciplines are unique to our small corner of the conti-

nent, elsewhere in the civilized world, people appear to have

either ignored, rejected, or never discovered the advantages

of ley energy.

Elsewhere, people live much as the hill-folk and the

between-ley farmers, in towns and villages and individual

homesteads, dependent upon candles for light and fire for

heat. Even where great and powerful leadership results in

cities to rival Rhomatum in both size and population, those

citizens still conduct their lives under the most primitive of

conditions, where the very necessities of life create filth and

stench unimaginable to a citizen of Rhomatum.

These have a long and complex history of petty kingdoms

and empires with which Darius, in his Histories, was nota-

bly unconcerned.

The conscientious scholar can't but wonder whether this

lack of interest on the part of Rhomatum's founder in the

World Beyond the Web (a tendency which to this day, Rho-

matum herself displays in her extra-web dealings) indicates

(1) an idiosyncrasy endemic to any node city, (2) an isola-

tionist tendency inherited from Rhomatum's sociotechno-

logic progenitor, or (3) a simple echo of Rhomatum's

founder's own limited interests and biases. . . .

. . . insofar as history can be described as 'fact, ' insofar as

we have a multiplicity of accounts to substantiate those

'facts,' we have ample reason to believe the following to

be 'true':

1) In the spring of the thirty-ninth year of Matrindi's reign

in Mauritum, Darius Rhomandi, of no proven patronage,

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led 257 adult males, 199 adult females and an unrecorded

number of minor children out of the city of Mauritum and

across the Amaidi Channel to the mainland valley where

they founded the city of Rhomatum.

2) That Darius was ultimately responsible for capping and

controlling the Rhomatum leynode also appears undisputed,

as is the case with Darius' claim to Maurii priesthood,

though he was apparently a very minor priest, most likely

of the metal-working order, considering the endless detail

with which he describes the casting of the Rhomatum rings.

3) According to hill-folk tradition, a tradition substanti-

ated by the ruins scattered throughout the valley and foot-

hills, the Dorian refugees were by no means the first

inhabitants of the valley. However, none of the physical evi-

dence supports the current, highly popularized theory that

Darius led an army into the valley and destroyed the Tamsh-

irin of local folklore: the patterns of destruction still extant

on the ruined castles and altars, while not indicative of natu-

ral weathering and decay, have more in common with ley-

invoked lightning storms than with any human engine of

war. Nor is there evidence in the remaining architecture to

suggest other than human origin.

Indeed, in this, considering the deserted sites, rubbled vic-

tims of Rhomatum's shunted lighting storms, now extant on

the Rhomatum Web's own borders, we can trust Darius'

account that the valley beyond Persitum Node had become

a maelstrom following Mauritum's capping of Persitum. A

constant pounding of lightning would seem, at least to this

humble scholar, sufficient inducement for Rhomatum Val-

ley's former inhabitants to have taken their leave. . . .

... Of Mauritum itself, we have little solid evidence to

support or defy Darius' unquestionably biased account; the

reports of mutual trade interests, however, substantiate his

contentions of massive overpopulation within the island

cities, as well as the enormous sociopolitical power he attri-

butes to the Maurii priesthood.

Granted these two 'facts,' Darius' demand that the main-

land satellite nodes swear fealty to Rhomatum alone or be

cut out of the web was destined to create antipathy between

Darius' Rhomatum and ancient Mauritum.

According to Darius, there were actual armed assaults on

Rhomatum in those early days; however, considering Mauri-

tum's limited martial resourcesby that time the world be-

yond considered them invincible, and they hadn't mounted

an wmy in generationsand considering also the fact that

by the time such assaults could have taken place Darius'

original small band had grown to thousands, Darius' color-

ful depiction of Maurii soldiers breaching the outer walls of

Rhomatum and threatening the Tower itself might well be

all color and little substance.

A created cultural paranoia, if you will.

Then again, the accounts might be word for word, event

by event, accurate. One simply cannot know. . . .

. . . and lacking a contemporary outside perspective, recon-

ciliation of [Darius'] acts with his espoused goals and beliefs

is virtually impossible.

What appears indisputable to this scholar is that two great

powers have been poised in equilibrium for three centuries:

one structured ostensibly around the will of great and power-

ful gods, the other (also ostensibly) around human free will.

That the god Maurii lusts after additional followers is a

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virtual givensuch is the way of gods. What Darius in-

tended, what goals Darius has passed on to his descendants,

is far less certain to those of us who live outside the Tower.

For three hundred years, these two powerful, isolate enti-

ties have stood side by side, looking carefully past one an-

other, their peaceful coexistence based upon their own

invincibility upon their own soil. If, however, each of these

aloof giants in fact desires the other's power, when that bal-

ance shifts, as some day it must, they will be forced to look

upon one another in truth, without a god'sany god's,

Maurii's or Darius'intervention. ...

Prelude

High in the atmosphere above Mount Khoratum, moisture-

laden froth boils higher, deeper. Denied escape, caught be-

tween the freezing air above and the shifting energies below,

particles roil in ever-increasing ferocity, swirling on fierce,

invisible currents, twisting, rubbing, chafing . . .

Deep within the heart of Mount Khoratum, in a leythium-

draped chamber deeper than the deepest human mines,

Mother laughed, revelling in the flow of pure energy that

slithered tingling tendrils across her skin, and for a time, it

was sensuality alone that dictated her moves, that drove

her to keep that brewing storm contained.

It is an ancient, elemental ritual, this periodic convergence

of power, frustration, and obstinacy; a ritual compelled by

laws as primordial as the earth herself toward its inevitable

resolution:

Lightning arced between clouds.

"Oo-oo-oo ..." Mother shivered in victorious ecstasy.

"Yes!"

On the mountain's surface, midway between leythium

cave and lightning cloud, in the Tower overlooking the

human-built city called Khoratum, in a chamber where the

seven leythium-coated rings of Khoratum spun solemnly

about their common centerthe Khoratum free radical

echoed that sky-born bolt with a quivering deflection of its

own sinuous path.

It was a tiny shift, a disturbance only the most observant

would note: the radical (an amorphous streamer of pure

leythium that skipped and danced freely among its more

rigid cousins) was prone to random motion. A tiny distur-

bance, but significant. A power fluxtiny, but significant

that only a most Talented human ringmaster could correct

. . . without consumer awareness.

Visible to no one within that notably empty room, bane-

ful energy sizzled along the radical, arced from radical

streamer to the outermost Cardinal Ring. The Cardinal

shuddered, its heartbeat-regular rhythm faltered, and the

energy mote leapt inward, disrupting the painstakingly

aligned orbits of Khoratum Tower's rings one by one.

On the innermost, it paused as if savoring its triumph,

then penetrated the central sphere itself. "The scintillating

orb flared, a momentary localized nova extending well be-

yond the Cardinal's radius, then faded to lightless black.

The rings faltered and tumbled to the tiled floor.

Lights within the embryonic city blossoming ripplewise

from the Tower's baseflickered and died.

Sirens sounded. Briefly.

Unchecked, the mote fled the Tower and skipped trium-

phantly along city streets vacant on this fearsome afternoon

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and midnight-dark between stormy skies and mountain

shadows. It slithered sullenly past wattle and daub huts

aglow with light, oil lamps impervious to the mote's pres-

ence, then flowed like spring rain runoff along the leyline,

down the mountain pass toward the fertile Rhomatum

Valley.

It was a route marked with dead and dying trees, the

unnatural byproduct of Khoratum's recent capping. Before

the humans, the ley had created but small disruptions to

the natural surface growth; the narrow lines of sterility

marking its underground structure had been part of the

natural scheme, rivers and streams.

But the humans capped the nodes, concentrated the en-

ergy flows, and spread the pathway, making of the natural

ley a wound, a perversion. And to that perversion, the hu-

mans added gravel and paving stone: a road for their travel-

ing convenience.

On that leyroad came a cargo hauler bound for Khora-

tum, foolish and greedy driver to be out on a leyroad on

such a day, daring the elements to interfere with his

schedule.

Like some giggling, formless gremlin, the spark infiltrated

the hauler's heater-core and brushed the tiny leythium web

contained there with an ephemeral kiss. The web shriveled;

the heater died. Deprived of buoyancy, the hauler's tower-

ing balloon wilted, throwing the cargo bed's full weight

onto woefully inadequate wagon axles. The draft horses

stopped dead in their tracks, and the lead gelding cast an

accusntory glance over his broad shoulder toward the silk-

draped, disgruntled driver.

The sparking mote, heedless now of the havoc in its

wake, scampered through the Khoramali foothills, ignoring

equally the thriving watchtowers of the current human pop-

ulace and the ruined altars of the previous inhabitants. It

bounded relentlessly toward the valley's southernmost

reach, toward another ley-rich node, another ringchamber,

another tower-dominated city.

Mount Rhomatum: eroded with timeas Mount Khora-

tum was not.

Rhomatum Node: where nine major leylines converged

to Khoratum's six.

Rhomatum City: a web of carefully plotted ringroads and

radial spokes: leyroad connections to other nodes, other

citiesof which Khoratum was youngest.

But far from least.

Rhomatum: home of Ringmaster Anheliaa dunMoren,

architect and instigator of the profane Khoratum Tower.

Gaining momentum and gleeful purpose with each pass-

ing instant, the spark traversed its barren path, a gravelled

slash between lush, cultivated fields, and streaked through

the outer-city livestock market, unnoticed by any save cat-

tle and chickens.

Almost sentient in its excitement, the lightning-born ca-

lamity reached for the City's outermost wall, the human-

made buffer against human flotsam seeking Rhomatum's

energy-rich harbor.

It gained the innermost stone . . .

And died.

Unnoticed.

Unappreciated.

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(Sigh.)

Ignored.

And, as yet another leythium strand quivered in sympa-

thetic resonance to the firestorm raging above. Mother kin-

dled another . . . event.

5ECTIOtt

OME

The impending deluge erupted just as Deymorin Rhomandi

dunMheric raced beneath the palisade gate that marked the

Rhomatum umbrella's outermost perimeter. A single stride

within, Deymorin's horse, wise to the idiosyncrasies of the

City and disdaining anything so plebeian as a signal from

his rider, shd to a plunging, bucking halt, spraying sand and

gravel over the gate attendants scattering from his path.

Deymorin himself, wise to the idiosyncrasies of his horse

(having raised him from a fractious colt), lifted a careless

hand to stop the single, brave (but ill-advised) soul who

rushed forward to help control Ringer's extravagant dis-

play. Having failed to unseat his rider, the horse froze, four

feet square, then shook from toe to tail, as if the handful

of drops that had pelted them at the last had drenched him

to the skin.

"Silly creature," Deymorin murmured fondly, and leaned

forward to slap the sweat-darkened neck. When he straight-

ened, it was as if every vertebra snapped and grated before

settling into place. He gave his aching shoulders a backward

stretch, signalled his thanks to the alert gatekeep, who'd

had the gate open and waiting by the time he reached it,

and sent Ringer on toward the stables with a gentle pres-

sure of leg and rein.

Outside the palisade the air was roihng grey and deluge;

here, at the power umbrella's outermost edge, where only

the smallest, simplest and purest leythium crystal would

glow, the glimmer of sun through broken clouds cast the

occasional shadow; shadows whose midafternoon length re-

minded him of his woefully belated arrival.

Easy enough to find excuses, if excuses he desired. Ex-

cuses Nikki would understand: the weanling cull running a

month late, the overall high quality of the foals making the

choice of which to keep and which to sell nearly impossible:

a fact that would please him, once he'd had time to con-

sider; and there was desperately needed hay that lay curing

in the fields about to be storm-flooded, and a prize brood-

mare in danger of aborting what might well be her last

foal...

Time-critical problems, all of them. Small wonder Tonio's

gentle reminder early this morning had caught him un-

awares and at his stud farm, Darhaven, rather than in

Rhomatum.

Small wonder, but unforgivable: older brothers had . . .

obligations.

And the morning of the eighteenth day of the first month

of the year 317 should have found Deymorin Rhomandi

dunMheric, brother of Nikaenor Rhomandi dunMheric, if

not in Rhomatum itself, at least at the valley estate, Ar-

mayel. When a man's family owned multiple seats, a man

really ought to make use of them.

Darhaven was in the foothills, two sensible days' ride

from Rhomatum; Armayel, an easy morning's jaunt. Nikki

would have understood his sleeping over at Armayel to

minimize his time in the City; Nikki would never have for-

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given him missing tonight's festivities altogether.

Well, he hadn't spent the night at Armayel, but he wasn't

going to miss the party either, though he might well fall

asleep in the middle of dinner. It had required his best and

bravesthe ran a grateful hand down the sweating arch of

mane and muscleto get him here at even this truant hour.

He tightened his legs and Ringer surged willingly into a

jogtrot, the fastest pace the law allowed within the palisade.

The horse was tired, as Deymorin himself was, but eager

for the warmth and comfort awaiting him in the stables.

If only, Deymorin thought as he ducked to miss the low

beam at the barn's back entrance, Ringer's rider felt a simi-

lar anticipation toward his own . . . stable.

A nickering duet greeted him as he eased numb feet to

the packed and raked ground outside the tackroom, and

fluttering nostrils on two near-identical black-nosed heads

with identical white stars appeared over neighboring stall

doors. He dropped Ringer's reins and palmed a handful of

dried apple treats from the pouch hanging just within the

tackroom door, a move that raised an expectant rustle be-

hind him.

"Don't even think it," he said, without turning.

With a dejected whoof, that sense of horse at his shoulder

disappeared. Ignoring the big bay gelding, he limped across

the aisle to the greys' stalls, speaking softly to them,

scratching the snip on Storm's nose, the tiny scar on Ash-

ley'sthe only notable difference between themhis eyes

reflexively noting their condition.

They were undoubtedly the best matched team ever bred

at Darhaven, by himself or any of his ancestors.

Theoretically, the greys belonged at Armayel, but some-

how they rarely stayed there for long. Not that he minded:

better here where they'd be exercised and loved than wait-

ing around for his infrequent needs. Personally, he pre-

ferred to rideas had Nikki. Once. Before the boy found

it impossible to ride two horses at the same time.

He scratched an expectant chin with one hand, with the

other patted a neck solid beneath a silken black mane . . .

and recalled a scrawny, blond-headed kid and two scraw-

nier foals, and himself and Gerhard bastardizing their bet-

ter sense for a pair of pleading blue eyes.

And Nikki had been right, in his blind-child-luck way.

The twins had lived, and flourished, to become a matched

team any horseman would cherishas the scrawny, blond-

headed kid had grown into a man anyone would be proud

to call brother.

Well, most of the time.

He did look forward to seeing Nikki. His youngest broth-

er's visits to Darhaven occurred far too infrequently these

days, and when Nikki was there, he seemed distracted,

more interested in the library than the horses. Deymorin

suspected their mutual brother Mikhyel's hand in both that

dereliction and that distraction, as in much else that tran-

spiredor didn'tin the boy's life.

Dear, pious, priggish Mikhyel. Sometimes he thought

he'd be perfectly content if he never saw his other brother

again, but if enduring the middle Rhomandi brother's pres-

ence was the price he must pay for time with the youngest,

he'd pay that and willingly to be with the boy tonight.

Boy. Not any longer. Nikki was seventeen now, and le-

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gally a manor would be, soon enough, after the an-

nouncements had been posted, the oaths taken and the

Citizen contract signed.

Gods will Nikki's would be a less . . . eventful . . . passage

into adulthood than Mikhyel's had been. He'd lost a

brother that nightten years ago next springthough not

to death. Death would have been easier, cleaner. Instead,

he'd been left with a hard-faced, ambulatory shell that bore

only a superficial resemblance to the brother he'd grown

up with.

He'd lost one brother that night; he wasn't about to lose

a second tonight.

He ran a final, loving hand down each dark grey jowl,

gave Storm's overactive black lip a gentle tug, and returned

to Ringer, hands harboring one final treat behind his back.

They were gathering an audience, he and the big horse;

grooms versed enough in his ways not to interfere before

his signal, and familiar enough with those ways to stand

where they could enjoy the show.

"Well?" he asked.

A black-rimmed ear twitched. The bloodred head with

its narrow blaze drooped low, the long forelock falling

across half-lidded eyes: a picture of equine exhaustion re-

quiring only shuddering sides and quivering knees to com-

plete. Unfortunately for Ringer, his sides moved in long,

even breaths, and his legs were as sound as they'd been

that morning.

"I'm not impressed, you know."

The large head raised to rest its chin heavily . . . pitifully

. . . on his shoulder.

Laughter escaped despite tight-clamped lips, and Ringer,

with a smug toss of his head, shoved Deymorin's chest with

his nose, demanding his reward, which Deymorin willingly

provided.

Handing the intrepid gelding over at last to the team of

chuckling grooms, he freed his silver-handled cane and pis-

tol from the saddle and headed through the stable toward

the market and the inner wall, pausing only to check the

pistol at the armory.

A man never forgot that twice. If he somehow got past

the guard with it, chances were it would shoot off some-

thing important, without warning and before nightfall.

Ley and gunpowder, like ley and lightning, did not mix.

The Oreno market closed around him, banners and

booths combining to obscure the stable. Once one of sev-

eral private facilities situated well outside the city wall

among productive farmlands, where there had been space

in plenty for paddocks and arenas, the Rhomandi stable

was the final vestige of that original agrarian use of this

land.

Nearly ten years ago, his own dear aunt Anheliaa had

realized her greatest ambition and capped Khoratum

Node, making her the first Rhomatumin ringmaster ever to

have the full power of the Rhomatum Web available to

her. The most immediate and inescapable effect of control-

ling that last of Rhomatum's satellite nodes was the exten-

sion of the Rhomatum City power umbrellaby as much

as five miles in some directions.

The City had immediately constructed a new perimeter

wall, a physical demarcation of that new municipal bound-

ary, and the property valuesthanks to overzealous specu-

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latorsbetween the old wall and the new had flared out of

control, taking property taxes with them. Ten years after

the fact, prices had settled, the taxes had, but much of the

land between the old wall and the new still lay fallow, no

longer fit to grow anything but roses, the previous owners,

mostly farmers and horse breeders, driven out, those over-

zealous speculators considering themselves fortunate when

they managed to break even.

Deymorm himself had eventually given in to Mikhyel's

pressure and sold his own training facilities (twenty pad-

docks, two outdoor arenas, and one mirrored, indoor arena,

as well as two of his three barns) to some faceless Oreno

Syndic, whose favor Mikhyel had been courting for some

internode economic alliance. His only consolation when he

passed the vacant paddocks was that the new owner, who

had purchased the facility when the market was at its peak,

had yet to resell the land and lacked the capital to develop

it himself.

And Mikhyel's deal had fallen through.

None of which mattered significantly to Deymorin these

days. He had moved his in-training stock (and himself) per-

manently to Darhaven, and overall, he preferred the

change. But he'd keep this small barn (if only to spite his

miserly sibling at each tax assessment of the Family estate)

until that miserly sibling managed to push through some

law that made the barn illegaland even then, he might

choose to challenge that yet to be written law, just to see

whether that miserly siblingwho was also the family

barristerwould dare prosecute his own brother, who also

happened to be the Princeps of Rhomatum.

That would keep the gossips busy for at least a

month. . . . And Mikhyel hated scandal.

Outside the palisade, in the new country edge, no civilian

stables had grown up to replace the old. Professionals, such

as the long-haulers or the internode passenger coaches, had

already built their own private stables, convenient to the

leylines between node cities, but well beyond the reach of

city taxation. Around those stables, communities had

grown: inns, farriers, everything needed for the stock, the

drivers and those who cared for them. Most Outsiders

forced to visit the city now put themselves and their horses

up at these small villages, then took the commercial float-

ercoaches into the city itself.

"The casualty of the Khoratum expansion that was likely

to prove the most costly of all had been the dissolution of

the military training grounds, facilities that had once drawn

recruits from all over the web. Stables full of well-bred

horses, gymnasiums and practice fields, shooting ranges

everything needed to train young men to defend their fami-

lies and homeshad been reduced over the years to a sin-

gle gymnasium, a fencing salle, and a handful of ill-trained

equine slugs Mikhyel and his City Council cronies allotted

the city to keep the Guard in practice.

In practice.' Only Mikhyel could conceive so inane a

concept. Men didn't stay in practice for war, they kept

preparedwhich meant more than a twice yearly jog about

a covered arena and crossing epees in a salle.

But Rhomatum didn't require such readiness any

longerjust ask his dear brother. The Rhomatum Web was

civilized, her satellites content with the status quo, her

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traditional adversary, Mauritum, was ready to sign trade

agreements . . . any day now . . . for the last twenty-five

years and more.

Anheliaa had capped Khoratum, and suddenly Rhoma-

tum was invincible . . . at least, that was how the city-bound

members of the 36th Council of the City of Rhomatum

apparently viewed the situation.

As those sagacious leaders viewed the situation, no con-

quering warrior could take Rhomatum without destroying

that which made her the most valuable: her precious leythium-

hamessing rings. Ringmasters weren't interchangeable.

Common knowledge held that training a master required

years of orientation and personal supervision by the sitting

master. Without a ringmaster, the rings themselves would

falter in their paths and the power that ran the city would

cease to flow; and since only Anheliaa dunMoren could

train the next Rhomatum ringmaster, Rhomatum was, so

Council believed, completely safe.

Which reasoning presupposed that that faceless conquer-

ing warrior wanted the rings. At the moment, the Kirish'lan

Empire that controlled the majority of the lands along the

Rhomatum Web perimeter was apparently quite content

without ringpower. Content or uninterested. Fortunately

for Rhomatum, they seemed equally uninterested in the

Rhomatum Valley.

That hadn't always been the case, and likely would not

be again at some unknowable future date.

What those Rhomatum leaders failed to realize (or

refused to acknowledge) was that the land surrounding

Rhomatum was immensely vulnerable, not only to some

theoretical invasion, but to the very real and increasingly

unpredictable whims of nature. Without her associated

farmland, Rhomatum would starve within a year, despite

her much-vaunted reserves.

But Rhomatum councillors didn't think of that. Rhoma-

tum citizens as a whole had forgotten where bread and milk

and cheese came from, thanks to ancestors who had moved

into an extremely fertile valley that had been blessed, with

the capping of Rhomatum, with unnaturally reliable

weather patterns, where those who would be farmers could

ply their trade with maximum output for minimum effort.

A society grown content, that was Rhomatum.

Deymorin had personally replaced those neglected mar-

tial facilities, basing the new facility at Parawin, yet another

of that multiplicity of Rhomandi estates. He'd made them

available to any who requested. Sometimes those who came

paid for the privilege; frequently they could not. For the

sake of the future of the valley, he and other like-minded

landowners throughout the entire web absorbed the ex-

pense, never bothering to ask Rhomatum for subsidy.

He'd tried that once, five years ago, and discovered the

hard way just how blind stupid a majority rule could be

when the majority was ignorant and refused education.

After that eye-opening debacle, when something had

needed doing, he'd done it himself.

And Mikhyel wondered why his elder brother's pockets

were always empty. When it came to Outside matters, Mi-

khyel was as blind-stupid as the rest of the Council.

Outside, Inside, the Darkness Between the Lines .. . as

if any of those parts existed apart from the whole. The

Web was the Web: Rhomatum, her eighteen satellite

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Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 1 - Ring of Lightning

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