Soarers Choice by L. E. Modesitt

schemes of some sort. Probably not, because those who were not initially
involved would have had to build their own alliances and allies to protect
themselves, as he had with Asulet and Sulerya — and Lystrana, of course.
Zelyert might not be an enemy, but Dainyl certainly couldn’t count the High
Alector of Justice as an ally, either.
    He
stepped through the door of the Table chamber, closing it behind himself, and
checking the chamber, which still held the recorder and the two older guards in
gray, then approached the Table.
    “Have
a good translation, Marshal,” offered Myenfel.
    “Thank
you.” Dainyl started to step onto the Table, when someone appeared on the
mirrored surface.
    Chill
billowed away from the figure, a tall alectress clad in the green and gray of a
Myrmidon captain of Ifryn. Her form held a strange greenness, somewhat like
that of the ancients, but not exactly. Her lightcutter flashed at the guards,
cutting one down immediately.
    Dainyl
clamped his own shields around her as she triggered the lightcutter.
    The
bluish light flared, reflected from Dainyl’s shields back across her abdomen,
and she toppled, slowly, hitting the Table with a dull thud.
    He
dropped his shields and lifted his own lightcutter, sensing another welling of
Talent, this one twisting and uncontrolled.
    The
next appearance was that of a wild translation — half wild sandox from the neck
up, a wide triangular head with a glittering horn, and crystalline blue eyes,
and Myrmidon-clad below. Like the captain who lay on the Table, beginning to
turn to dust, the second translation held a lightcutter sidearm.
    Dainyl
shot the beast through the chest, right below the neck. The wild translation
collapsed. Unlike that of the dead captain, the translation’s body remained
solid.
    “Thank
you, Marshal,” Myenfel said, from beside the collapsed gray uniform of the dead
Table guard. “I’d suggest you hasten your translation.”
    Dainyl
stepped onto the Table, but bent and dragged the dead form of the wild
translation off the Table, and then the collapsed uniform and equipment of the
dead Myrmidon captain — if indeed she had even been such. He straightened and
concentrated on the darkness beneath the Table ...
    ...
and the purpled darkness rose up around him with its chill. He began to search
for the brilliant white locator of Elcien, but as he did, lines of green
coruscated along the purple translation tube. So bright were the lines of green
that he had difficulty discerning any of the locator wedges.
    One
green beam, struck his shoulder, and a combination of pain and... something
else — something that felt welcoming and familiar before it faded — knifed through
him. Another seemingly knocked his feet from under him, and that was nonsense,
because no one really stood in translation. There wasn’t the same physical
reality.
    Dainyl
struggled, but the locators were gone — or blocked out for the moment.
    There
was one green diamond in the distance, and he reached for it. Better to be
somewhere than end up dying nowhere or becoming a wild translation himself.
    He
flashed through a green-silver barrier and...
    ...
stood bent over in a narrow tunnel, one so low that his hair still brushed the
roof. Warm air flowed toward him.
    Where
was he?
    He
glanced toward the light... and swallowed. Outside he could see a small flat
area, surrounded by rugged boulders. He recognized the place. He was in the
mountain cave of the ancients in Dramur.
    He
forced himself to ignore the absolute impossibility of his location and eased
back until he stood — even more hunched over — on the silver rock mirror at the
back of the unnatural cave. There he concentrated, seeking not the purpled
blackness of the translation tube, but the plain and deeper blackness he had
latched on to before., His efforts seemed hard, and to take far longer, but...
    ...
he was in a dark chill, if not so chill as a translation tube.
    This
time, he had decided to look for the locator