Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (47 page)

NYLAN BOLTED UPRIGHT on the bedroll in the dim light of dawn. He was sweating, despite the light breeze. His mouth and lips were dry, and his heart raced. For a moment, he sat there, breathing deeply and looking down the gentle incline to the flat and dark green waters of the brine lake.

   “Another dream?” On the bedroll beside his, Ayrlyn rolled onto her side facing him.

   Nylan rubbed his temples with the fingers of his right hand, then squinted, finally nodding.

   “About the forest?”

   “You had it, too?” Nylan's mouth was dry and felt cracked, as if he had trudged through a stone desert. He glanced to his left, but Weryl still snored, his mouth partly open. Beyond Weryl, Sylenia lay motionless, her face toward the south and away from Nylan.

   “I think so. It was about trees and earthquakes and white lightnings and dark clouds.” Ayrlyn kept her voice low, barely above a whisper.

   “Chasing me.” He coughed, then glanced to the east, but the horses grazed quietly, still all on the tieline. “Symbolism.”

   “It's getting harder to tell the difference between reality and symbolism.” Ayrlyn rolled into a sitting position, brushing her short red hair back off her ears.

   “Isn't it? It's getting a lot clearer-no, it's not at all clear- but it's feeling more important that we reach this enchanted forest, except I don't think it's exactly enchanted.”

   Ayrlyn took a deep breath. “We're going to have the entire armed forces of Cyador pushing over the Grass Hills as soon as they can-or as soon as they find out about the mess at the mines.”

   “Do we know that for sure?”

   “You're asking that now?” She shook her head. “Given the way rulers and empires work, and the fact that almost all people resort to force when they have it, a full-scale armed invasion's about as sure a thing as you could bet on without actually standing in front of a bunch of charging lancers. Even Fornal thinks so.”

   “And we're riding through hills and dust to find a forest we're not sure exists except in our dreams?”

   “It exists.”

   Nylan tried to lick his lips again, and couldn't. He reached for the water bottle he had left by his head, uncorked it slowly, and sipped. “I don't even know how or if it will help find a way to stop the Cyadorans.” He took another sip. “But nothing else will.” He shrugged.

   Surprisingly, Ayrlyn grinned. “I'm game.” She reached for the water bottle.

   Nylan handed it to her. “What?”

   “For the first time in seasons, you're not the cold, logical engineer. You're not calculatedly whittling away at a superior force. You've said, 'This is what I feel.' It makes sense.”

   “It does?” Nylan wasn't all that sure it did. He tried to clear his throat.

   “Enough. We need to eat.” Ayrlyn sat up straighter and reached for her boots, shaking them out before pulling them on. “I hate living in my clothes, and that's all we do.”

   “Ooooo . . .” Weryl rolled onto his side.

   Nylan followed the redhead's example and pulled on his own boots, then turned toward his son. Nylan's smile faded as his nose wrinkled. “You smell. I'll be glad, I think, at least in certain ways, when you can take care of some things all by yourself.”

   Weryl's smile vanished, and the boy turned toward Sylenia. “Enyah?”

   “Your father be right, child.” Sylenia shook her head as Nylan lifted Weryl and carted him down toward the lake.

   By the time he had lugged the boy a good distance down the shore and cleaned him off-first using the salty water, and then using some desalted water that left him with a headache-and returned, Ayrlyn had biscuits and cheese laid out for them.

   The yellow brick cheese was hard enough that Nylan almost had to use his belt dagger like a saw to hack off chunks small enough to chew.

   Weryl promptly spit out the fragment he had been offered.

   “Manners, Weryl,” said Nylan wearily, rubbing his forehead.

 
  “Wadah, pease.”

   Sylenia proffered a water bottle.

   All four ate slowly, silently, as the white-orange sun peered over the eastern hills.

   “We ought to get moving pretty soon,” Ayrlyn said. “Before it gets too hot.”

   “I wish we knew more,” Nylan said after swallowing the last crumbs of a too-dry biscuit. “Like exactly where we're headed. A map would help.”

   “The Cyadorans don't leave those lying around,” mumbled Ayrlyn, trying to swallow her own dry biscuit crumbs.

   “The white wizards use a glass to see,” pointed out Sylenia. “Could you not do that? I have a small flat glass.”

   Nylan shivered. The thought of using that twisted white energy for anything-anything at all... he just couldn't do it.

   “That might be difficult,” Ayrlyn said.

   “Can you not do something?”

   The engineer frowned. Lasers . . . lasers had a parallel in the order forces, and he'd used that parallel in smithing. The glass was parallel to electronics. Nagging thoughts chased through his mind ... piezoelectrics ... glass, what was glass? Silicon, and what was silicon? Sand? Order out of chaos? Sand was chaotic enough, but you could make glass, mirrors, lasers, mirrors, mirror shields . ..

   “Frig ... I should have seen it!”

   “What?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “So obvious . . .”

   “What?” Ayrlyn's voice carried an exasperated edge.

   “The mirror shields. You don't keep traditions unless they serve a purpose. I assumed-maybe you did, too-that those reflective shields were half practical, half traditional.”

   “Oh . . .” Ayrlyn nodded. “They're protection against lasers-and white wizards' firebolts. They don't have any lasers left, but-”

   “Right. What else do they have?”

   “There was a mention of fire cannon in the scrolls. Lasers?”

   “Could be. Or it could be something like a flamethrower.”

   Nylan frowned.

   “Antique weapon. You shoot jets of flammable liquids at people and things and light it. If you keep the pressure up, it doesn't come back and burn you ... something like that.” Ayrlyn took a sip of wafer, then stood and stretched. “Sitting on the ground isn't my idea of comfort.”

   “Flamethrowers ... we can deal with. White magic lasers would be another thing,” Nylan said.

   Weryl climbed up Sylenia's shoulder to a standing position, then tottered toward Ayrlyn, flinging his arms around her trousered leg. “Ahwen . . . ahwen.”

   “You are an imp.” Ayrlyn smiled, but lifted the silver-haired child and hugged him.

   Nylan corked the water bottle and stood. Despite the wind that blew out of the north, he could still smell the brackish salty water below. Salt and sand and grass hills and enchanted forests and white empires . . .

   “What are you thinking about?”

   “Maps, glasses, forests ... you name it.” The smith rubbed his temples. That was the problem with thinking. The more he thought, the more problems and ramifications he discovered-and each had more complexities than the last.

   He pursed his lips. Could he create a map, an image? Well... if he tried and failed, it cost nothing, unlike tampering with white chaos energy. Sands, granules of sand-he walked slowly toward the burned-out fires of the salt-collectors.

   “No . . . Weryl, let your father think for a moment.”

   Ayrlyn's words almost drifted around him as he reached the nearest of the old stone fire rings. He scuffed the ground with his boot. Was it sandy enough?

   After a moment, he walked back down along the dried-out section of the lakeshore. At the north end, where a stream had once flowed into the brine lake, or still did seasonally, perhaps, he found a depression less than three cubits across filled with sand.

   A map, he thought, a map.

   Nothing happened, except that he had the faintest twinge in his skull.

   Piezoelectric crystals, order flows, how do you get a map from that? Flows . . . chaos flows, patterns?

   The second time he abandoned the idea of maps, instead concentrating on the flows of order and chaos.

   The sands swirled, darker grains appearing until a pattern appeared.

   “Well . . . it's something . . .” The silver-haired angel squinted at the sandy pattern, then sat down abruptly beside it. His heart was racing again, and his knees were weak.

   Ayrlyn and Weryl appeared behind him at the edge of the dry-stream.

   “Are you all right?”

   “Takes .. . energy.”

   Her eyes went to the sands. “You did it!”

   “Sort of. It doesn't look like much to me.”

   Ayrlyn pointed. “Could that be Westwind, and the river and Lornth here, and that border there, the reddish sands-isn't that the outline of Candar itself?”

   “Maybe.” There weren't any large-scale maps of Candar, not that the engineer had seen, and his view of the continent had been limited to the brief time when he'd been jockeying an unstable and overloaded lander through a turbulent atmosphere. There was a definite resemblance between his sand map and what he thought he'd seen-but did that really mean anything?

   He hauled himself to his feet.

   “And this dark splotch here-that has to be the forest, and we're here . . . it's not all that far.”

   Nylan hoped not, even as he followed Ayrlyn's explanation. Now they were reduced to real faith in the unprovable- magic, sorcery, or whatever-following their instincts, the sun, and a map created by subconscious manipulation of sand. And he'd thought the U.F.F. High Command had been screwy!

A SMALLER VERSION of the silver and malachite throne no more than four cubits high rested on the white marble dais. The white marble wall behind the throne rose to a balcony covered with open grillwork that concealed the Archers of the Rational Stars.

   Lephi studied the throne, then turned to Triendar. “Be still, old friend, and just listen.”

   He gestured to the two tall Mirror Lancers who stood by the double doors, and they opened the doors. A tall man entered the hall, wearing the uniform of the Mirror Lancers, a uniform without the green sash and no longer white, but smeared with charcoal and blood, and with yellow and red dust ground into the fabric. The doors closed. The majer bowed. “Your Mightiness.” His voice was even, resigned, calm.

   “I have been told that you commanded the force that took the mines, and lost them, and that you returned with less than a third of your command.” Lephi's voice was cold. “Is that accurate?”

   “Yes, Your Mightiness.”

   “Is it also true that you failed to mine the copper and sent none back to Cyad?”

   “We mined the copper, Your Mightiness, and sent the wagons to Syadtar. I do not know what happened after that. During the entire campaign, I received no dispatches and no supplies.”

   “I will not have it!” Lephi glanced around the room, less than a tenth the size of the receiving hall in Cyad.

   Majer Piataphi stood below the dais, resigned, waiting.

   “Why did you return? Why did you bother? The Archers of the Rational Stars have terminated many for far less. So have the white mages.” Lephi's head inclined fractionally, in the direction of Triendar, who stood to his left, a pace back from the rearmost part of the throne.

   “I saw no point in having the rest of the foot and lancers slaughtered.” Piataphi shrugged. “We received no supplies. We lacked enough horse to attack, and there was no forage. The barbarians would not stand and fight, except when they could find smaller detachments and outnumbered them.”

   “You left with more than enough mounts.”

   “In the middle of the night, the barbarians cast fireballs over the walls and into the barracks and stables and corrals. They were not like the fireballs of the white mages, for they left no trails in the sky. We drove them off, but not before we lost nearly sevenscore mounts.”

   Triendar's hands, hidden in his flowing sleeves, tightened into near fists, but his face remained impassive.

   “I need no more catalogues of failure.” Lephi smiled. “You almost hope I will turn the Archers of the Rational Stars on you, Majer. I won't. You will lead the van against the grasslands barbarians, and you will lead from the front of the very first squad.”

   “Yes, ser.”

   “Go!”

   The majer turned, rather than backed away, and walked toward the double doors, which the lancers opened as he approached.

   After the doors closed, Lephi walked to the window at the right end of the chamber and looked beyond the white stone walls toward the browned Grass Hills. “Fireballs, supplies and copper that never arrived-what do you make of it?” He did not turn toward the mage, but left his eyes on the Grass Hills.

   “He tells the truth-”

   “I know that!” Lephi turned but did not move from his position by the window. “The man is honest, and he saved troops that would have been slaughtered. But it should not have happened that way. The barbarians should attack valiantly and break against the lancers, as they have always done. There should be no fireballs in Lornth. You told me that the three white mages of the barbarians had been killed.”

   “There are the angels.”

   “Do we know there are angels in Lornth?”

   “There is ... something . . .” Triendar admitted. “I have seen a man and a woman and a child, but only those three.”

   “Only three?”

   “Only three. There is the Accursed Forest-”

   “Always the forest. . . will Cyad . . .” Lephi clamped his jaw shut. “Find out more about the three. And be prepared to bring all manner of fire upon the barbarians when we meet on the field.”

   “Yes, Sire.” Triendar bowed, just deeply enough for the gesture not to be mocking.

THERE'S YOUR REAL lake." Nylan pointed toward the silver-tinged and elongated oval in the valley below as the mare carried him along the crest of the low ridge on a dusty road that was scarcely more than a trail. The stillness of the air made it seem far later in the day than mid-morning.

   “I said there was one.” Ayrlyn surveyed the valley. “Not much else here.”

   Nylan nodded. Ahead on the left was a holding of some sort, and a thin line of smoke rose into the green-blue sky from near the lake, kays yet ahead.

   “With water so scarce, you'd think there'd be more people around a lake,” Ayrlyn added.

   “Maybe it's salty, too.” Nylan glanced toward the holding as they rode nearer. Nothing moved.

   “It didn't feel that way.”

   The angel smith reined up, and wiped his forehead. Like everywhere in Candar outside the higher Westhorns, it was hot. And like all of southern Lornth-or northern Cyador- it seemed, there wasn't enough of a breeze to notice.

   Sylenia slowed her mount gradually, clearly trying not to jolt the dozing Weryl, a slight frown wrinkling her forehead.

   The lane on the left side of the road led arrowlike to three structures perhaps a hundred cubits to the west-a square house, what appeared to be a barn, and a large shed. A dark rectangular emptiness gaped where the barn door had been, and one side of the shed had caved in, imparting a rakish tilt to the sagging roof. The lane bore no tracks, but no weeds grew where ancient wagon wheels had packed the ground.

   “No sign of fire,” mused Nylan. “Just worn out.” He flicked the reins and eased the mare back into a walk.

   “Aren't we all?”

   “I hope not.” Nylan didn't have to force the grin too much.

   “You're difficult, and when you're not difficult, you're impossible.” Ayrlyn smiled.

   “Good.”

   A half kay beyond the abandoned stead, the road turned south again and descended into the east end of the valley. The lake was at the west end.

   “You can tell that the lake was bigger.” Ayrlyn gestured. “The flat meadows there? That's old lake bottomland. And there are mud or sand flats around the eastern end.”

   A thin plume of smoke rose from the house on the low hill to the southwest of the marshy lake.

   “Why would they build a house so far from the water?” asked Nylan.

   “Wadah?” asked Weryl.

   “In a moment, child,” said Sylenia in a low voice.

   Nylan grinned.

   “I'd bet the water level's seasonal,” Ayrlyn explained. “In the past, it might have filled the whole bottom of the valley. That abandoned holding was on the ridge too. Probably the well went when the water level dropped.”

   “Another part of the puzzle.”

   “It's no puzzle,” the redhead said. “All of this part of Candar is slowly changing to a drier climate.”

   The road followed what might have been the former high-water level of the lake on the north side of the valley. The grasses they rode past were thicker, with traces of green, on the bottomland below the road.

   On the right side of the road grazed a scattered flock of gray-white sheep, but there was no sign of a shepherd.

   “Not many people,” Ayrlyn said.

   “I have the feeling that we're on the frontiers of Cyador.”

   “That's the real puzzle,” she said. “Why would Cyador be so interested in taking over Lornth? This valley is a lot more hospitable than southern Lornth, and people have abandoned it.”

   “Maybe it's the copper, or coal, or extractive resources that they need.”

   “Maybe . . . but why?”

   Nylan shrugged. He didn't know, and there was so much they didn't know.

   “They do not like the old people of Candar,” ventured Sylenia from where she rode slightly behind them. “Not those who live beyond their white walls.”

   The faint baaaaing of the sheep drifted toward the riders, and Nylan glanced down at the animals. Still no herder or even herd dogs. A golden bird, heavy and plumpish, burst out of the knee-high grasses below the road and soared eastward toward the even higher grasses.

   “That looked like some sort of pheasant.”

   “If it looked like a pheasant. . .”

   “. . . it probably was,” Ayrlyn concluded.

   “I'd bet they taste good.” Nylan could feel himself salivating.

   “They be most tasty,” Sylenia affirmed. “In Lornth, only the lords may hunt them.”

   That somehow figured. Nylan studied the lake ahead. On the south side, across from where they approached, was a stand of reeds.

   “You think this is safe? Or should we wait until it's dark?”

   “If anyone's looking, they've already decided to do something ... or not. If they have, we'll find out quickly. If not, why give them more time? Besides, we need the water now.” Ayrlyn paused. “And I don't feel like there are many people around here.”

   “Probably not.”

   Golden sand stretched back from the water on the eastern end nearly a hundred cubits with the beach running twice that in width, almost like a resort bathing area on Svenn.

   “The runoff carries the sand here. The reeds hold soil and organic matter. It's probably a very clean lake. I'd like a bath.” Ayrlyn glanced toward the house on the hill at the west end of the small lake. “This is the first real water we've seen in ... I'm not sure how long.”

   “Weryl, he could use bathing,” suggested Sylenia.

   Of that Nylan was also sure. “Let's water the mounts and fill water bottles first,” he suggested. “Just in case.”

   “You're probably right, but it feels like that one house is the only one with people in it.”

   They reined up just at the edge of the sand. Nylan glanced across the lake, but no one appeared, and the thin line of smoke continued to rise into the hot midday sky.

   “I'll water the mounts over there, and you and Sylenia fill the water bottles. If no one shows up, then you three bathe, and I'll watch.”

   “I'll bet you'll watch! But will you watch what you're supposed to be watching?”

   “I'm trying to be practical,” Nylan protested. “Even if someone does show up, it will take time.”

   Ayrlyn nodded. “I'm sorry. We'd have to hold them off while you scramble into your clothes? Or onto your horse?” She grinned. “I might just yell to see you do it, especially if your eyes stray too much when we're bathing.”

   “Thanks.”

   “You've been warned.”

   Once the water bottles were filled, Sylenia wasted no time in stripping off her riding clothes, and Weryl's as well, and wading into the lake, dipping Weryl's toes as she did. Although Nylan did his best to watch the house and the road in both directions, he could definitely understand Tonsar's attraction to the young woman-although he was glad Tonsar wasn't around to see Ayrlyn's charms.

   “Watch the road,” she called.

   He flushed and ostentatiously turned his head.

   “That's better.”

   Once the three left the water, he concentrated even more on studying the road and the hillside.

   “All right,” Ayrlyn called as she finished pulling on her boots. “You can stop being so obviously a prudish martyr. You saw more than enough, and don't tell me you didn't.”

   He couldn't help grinning at the humor in her voice.

   “It's your turn.”

   He dismounted and handed all the reins to the redhead, then pulled off his boots, then his clothes. The water was barely cool, close to warmish, as Nylan waded in, very much conscious that both Sylenia and Ayrlyn watched. The slope of the sandy part was gradual, so gradual that he had to walk almost a hundred cubits before the water reached his thighs. By then the sand had given way to soft mud that squushed up between his toes.

   Finally, he plunged in, enjoying the coolness on his skin. The golden sand helped scrub away the grime of what seemed more than a season, although he kept looking toward the house on the hillside as he washed.

   As he walked back up the sandy slope to the beach, he turned 'and glanced toward the hillside house, but could see no change, no puffs of dust that might indicate riders, just the same thin line of smoke from the chimney. Was someone baking or cooking, and just not looking outside?

   For a moment, he just stood in the sunlight, wiping off water with his hands before he tried to dry himself with the small square of cloth that doubled as a towel.

   Ayrlyn's eyes flicked from the hillside toward the silver-haired angel. “Nice view.”

   “Thanks.” Nylan couldn't help flushing, even as he saw that Sylenia busied herself with not looking in his direction and holding a water bottle for Weryl. “See anyone?”

   “No one, and it's not as if there were any cover.”

   Nylan wasn't sure whether he had minded washing up in plain view, or if the tightness in his stomach came from wondering whether anyone happened to be coming. He pulled on his clothes.

   Once he was dressed, he and Ayrlyn alternated washing out their spare sets of undergarments... and still no one appeared on the road.

   “Maybe we should camp here?” suggested Sylenia.

   Nylan and Ayrlyn exchanged glances.

   Both shook their heads.

   “Too open, and we need to get where we're going,” Nylan finally said. Staying just didn't feel right, and he could sense that Ayrlyn felt exactly the same way.

   He slipped into the saddle, looking back to see that the damp undergarments remained fastened to the outside of his saddlebags.

   The road curved up the hillside and past the single dwelling where smoke still drifted from the chimney, but the doors were closed, and the shutters on the lower levels were fastened tight.

   “They don't like strangers,” Nylan said.

   “I can't imagine raiders would come this far south. A xenophobic culture, you think?”

   “This far away from any towns? I don't know.”

   Sylenia cast a longing look back at the blue of the lake as they rode over the hill crest.