The Death of Chaos (15 page)

THE FOUR DRUIDS and the ancient stood in the time-draped grove of the Great Forest and watched as darkness and light boiled across the sand map of Candar.

   Of the silver-haired druids, only the eyes of the youngest, a woman scarcely appearing more than a girl, were upon a tiny point of blackened sand separate from the darkness that seemed to envelop both ends of the sand map of the continent. Two flares of white sand erupted from the eastern section of the map.

   “The darkness of this order has no. soul,” stated the ancient, “only the cold ordered iron of those who fell before the demons of light. Even the Great Forest fears such order.”

   “It has no song,” said the frail silver-haired singer.

   “You always speak of songs, Werlynn.”

   “And you, Syodra, forget the songs.”

   “Some of us have to live them,” said the youngest druid. “And the price is high.” She looked away from the map.

   “So are the joys, Dayala,” pointed out Syodra.

   “They are,” admitted Dayala, but her green eyes bore a darkness as they flicked to the single isolated point of black on the sands. “But joys end more quickly-and more painfully.”

   “There is always a price,” intoned the ancient. “This one will be greater, far greater, for order without soul is terrible, indeed.”

   “They have not heeded the songs,” added the sole male, “and the truth of their notes.”

   “Leave it to the Balance,” suggested the druid who had not spoken.

   “Leave it to the Balance? Yes, Frysa, leave it to the Balance. We, and generations, are still paying for the last decision we left to the Balance.” Dayala took a deep breath. “The Balance works, but it is far from kind. Nor is it always merciful or just.”

   “And did we not pay more dearly for those we did not leave to the Balance?” asked the ancient.

   Dayala's eyes dropped to the sands again and to the spreading darkness.

AFTER KRYSTAL ENSURED that I got some rest, although certainly not all of that could have been called rest in any language, by the next day I was looking over my workshop, and she was back hard at work in Kyphrien.

   While Krystal and the autarch and the new subcommander, a woman named Subrella, who'd been the district commander in Ruzor, worked on the logistics and the detailed plans for exactly how to recover the brimstone spring, I went back to the chair set for Hensil.

   Before I'd left, I'd gotten all eight chair backs done, rough-finished, at least, and it was time to start in on the seats and legs. The leg design was all turning, rather than steaming or bending, and time-consuming. I had to use the first chair as a sort of template for the rest of the set. In between times, for a break, if harder work were really a break, I went back to the time-consuming chiseling of the insets for the diamond-shaped back-plate with the inlaid initial H.

   Of course, the turning part got delayed because the band on the foot treadle broke. After I fixed that, I had to stop to sharpen the chisels. I'd been gone long enough that it seemed like every edged tool in the shop needed to be sharpened.

   About then, I wondered when I was even going to start on the desk for Antona. I hadn't even figured out what I'd need for the woods, let alone the bracing and thickness. I took a deep breath, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. While it might be chill outside, I'd built the shop snug, and the hearth helped, not only for heating and mixing glues or steam, but for keeping the woods from getting too hot or cold.

   Rissa hammered on the door. “Master Lerris?”

   She stepped inside and held a stool with a broken leg.

   “Can't it wait?”

   “It's been waiting since the day after you left, nigh on three eight-days, and I need this to get to the higher shelves. I told you those shelves were made for a giant.”

   I took a deep breath. “Set it over there.”

   “Thank you, ser.”

   The stool leg was easy enough, and I even had a leftover piece of oak that I turned down quickly. Then it was three holes with the brace and bit, some smoothing, and some more cleaning out, and then the glue.

   It wasn't a problem, but I knew I'd spend more time dealing with Rissa's gentle reminders than it would take to fix the stool if I didn't get it done soon.

   Then I went back to turning down and shaping the chair legs. I looked at the only partly begun cedar carving, but it would have to wait. Carvings didn't pay for wood or tools or food.

   Then I thought about my parents, again, and the letter I hadn't written. I took a deep breath.

   It was almost mid-morning before Rissa tapped on the door again.

   “Ser, we're near out of stove-length wood. I can split, but-”

   “You can't saw,” I finished.

   I didn't have time to saw, either, and I'd need someone on the other end of the big blade anyway. With another breath, I unlocked the storeroom and rummaged in the hidden cabinet for some silvers. After locking up again, I handed her four silvers. “See if you can get Gelet and Hurbo to saw the second stack behind the stable. Or someone else.” I paused. “Take the stool. The glue needs to set until tomorrow.”

   Rissa looked at me for a moment. I looked back. “Sawing wood does not finish chairs. If I don't finish these, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, I can't afford the food you want to cook on that stove.”

   She took the coins, not quite rolling her eyes, and I went back to the turning. When my foot got tired, I took out the narrow chisels and started the inlaid channels on the third and fourth backplates.

   Rissa put her head in the door. “I'll be taking the mare to find Gelet, Master Lerris.” I just nodded, not taking my eyes off the chisel. “I said I'd be taking the mare-” I had to look up. So I did. “Fine, Rissa. Take the mare.”

   “I hope it doesn't take too long to find someone to do the wood.”

   So did I, or I'd be getting reminders for days. I really wanted to get as much done on the chairs as I could. For however long the campaign for the spring took, I wouldn't be doing woodwork, and those would be days where no coins were being generated. I had some coins left from Kasee's purse that I hadn't given back, more than a few, but I felt bad about keeping them in some ways.

   That was another thing I needed to talk to Krystal about- among other things-if we ever got much time together. Sometimes, we were just too tired to talk. Sometimes, we did a lot of holding, and that was good, too. But we weren't talking about what the white wizard was doing, and that wasn't good.

   I took a deep breath as I heard the mare carry Rissa out of the yard and readjusted the foot treadle before I went back to turning the chair legs. Even with sharp blades on the chisels, it was a slow, slow business. Cherry is tough. That's what makes it good furniture wood.

   By the same reasoning, that was what made reading The Basis of Order valuable. It was tough, and I still didn't understand half of what was in it. I understood that there might be an order-based way to use chaos on Gerlis, if I understood what the book said, if I could figure out how to make it work, if I could survive to get close enough to Gerlis to try it...

   I readjusted the chisel and pumped the foot treadle. Turning cherry-tough as it was-was a lot easier than handling order and chaos.

THE EIGHT CHAIRS, all rough-finished, sat in a line across the workroom floor. With fine-shaping, a bit tedious, and some polishing and finishing, they'd be ready for Hensil. As it was, an apprentice, a careful one, could have finished them. Of course, I didn't have one, and no prospects at the moment. That was my own fault, though. I hadn't really looked for one, and finding a good apprentice was hard, as I had illustrated for both Justen and my uncle Sardit with my failures.

   Still, I looked at the lines of the chairs and smiled-for a moment. Even unfinished, they showed quality. I hadn't quite finished Kasee's wardrobe, although it looked finished, and I had the two desks to complete. The one for Werfel was a simple single-pedestal desk in red oak, less than an eight-day from completion. Antona's I hadn't started. I hadn't even done wood selection.

   The patter of a light winter shower came and went, and I could sense horses on the road. Rather than start something else, I went out into the yard and waited. The damp smell of barely wetted clay disappeared in the light cold wind as the clouds carrying that rain moved eastward. The sky toward the Westhorns was clear.

   Before long, Krystal and her guards rode into the yard.

   Perron had pretty much replaced Yelena as the head of Krystal's personal guard, because Yelena was being groomed for more leadership, especially for the attack on Hydlen. After Krystal's quiet words, he had been even more deferential than Yelena had been. He nodded at me from the saddle. “Good evening, Master Lerris.”

   “Good evening, Perron.”

   I held out a hand for Krystal, but she ignored it, her mind clearly elsewhere. I took the reins and led the black into the stable where we both unsaddled him and took turns brushing him down.

   I patted Krystal on the shoulder once or twice, but she didn't want to say much, perhaps because she was thinking about everything that was threatening.

   When we walked into the yard from the stable and past the end of the building that served as a bunkhouse, Krystal looked at me. “Let's walk up on the hill.”

   Behind the house, the trees rose to a low hill beyond the flat part that had once been a sheep meadow before Kasee gifted me the land-it had reverted to her when something strange had happened to the previous owner. The land had been part of my reward for taking on and being fortunate enough to eliminate Antonin.

   Someday, I intended to use the small stream for my own millrace, and cut and season my own wood. There were all three kinds of oaks, and even a handful of lorken, although they only grew near the very top of the hill.

   Krystal's eyes were darker and more serious, and there were deep circles under them, and her hair was showing streaks of silver. I needed to work on that, too, like everything else. She still wore her gold-braided jacket, and I had sawdust on my sleeves.

   I brushed off the sawdust and took her arm as we walked up the path. It ran next to the covered water line that fed the house from the pond I'd made on the hillside. The gray leaves of the oaks rustled in the light and cold winter wind, and the sky was a velvet purple, with a trace of pink along the western hills. The air was damper on the hill, with the acrid scent of winter leaves.

   Neither one of us said anything as we walked through the trees. There was a cleared spot at the top of the hill, and we looked down at the house, the attached shop, and the stable and shed. A line of smoke rose from the kitchen chimney, and I could smell the wood burning. The pile of new-sawn wood was stacked by the shed, and a smaller pile of partly split stove wood was heaped by the back door. I grinned, recalling Rissa's efforts to get me to saw it.

   Krystal squeezed my hand.

   “Lerris... you don't have to do this.”

   “Do what?”

   “You know. You always act dense when it's difficult for you. I meant leading Yelena's force to the white wizard.”

   I squeezed her hand in return, but I kept looking down at the house. I hadn't quite thought of it as leading Yelena's force. “You'll be right behind me.”

 
  “That's not answering the question. You still won't admit it if you are worried or if you need help. Don't make me guess how you feel. Not now.”

   “Krystal.” I paused. “We don't have any choices. You're the commander, and being who you are, you won't command from Kyphrien. That means the Hydlenese will throw rockets at you-unless someone stops them. Or diverts them.”

   “Yelena could go without you,” she said quietly.

   “She could, and a lot of troopers could get killed.”

   “They will anyway.”

   “You risk your life a lot, and I craft wood most of the time these days.”

   “No. I don't risk my life very often, not any more. I'd rather not.”

   I could sense the smile, and I gave her hand a squeeze. She returned the pressure, and we looked at the violet sky turning black, and the stars flickering into tiny lamps.

   “Lerris...”

   Krystal was quietly determined, another reason why I loved her, and she wanted an answer, not an evasion. Evasions were sometimes easier for me, and she knew that.

   “I don't like it. Gerlis is stronger than Antonin was. He's got those rockets, and he's a lot smarter.”

   “Because he's surrounded himself with an army?”

   I nodded. “He's not as arrogant, I don't think, and he dug up the idea of the rockets from somewhere. Or Duke Berfir did. I wonder if they've found out something else as well.”

   Krystal put an arm around me, and I put one around her as we looked out toward Kyphrien.

   “You didn't say much to Kasee...”

   I tried not to shrug. “What could I say? If you have to lead the forces against rockets, and I sit here because I'm no soldier, how will I feel if anything happens to you?”

   Another silence fell.

   “How will I feel if you die doing my job?” she asked.

   “What I have to do isn't exactly your job. And it is your job to use what you have to,” I said slowly. “Kasee was right. We just can't let things happen. Things always get worse. The thing that bothers me the most is not being with you.”

   “It bothers me. A lot.”

   It bothered me a lot, too. How I felt about separations was strange. Once I'd wandered all over Candar without her, without even knowing that I missed her, and now I disliked every small separation.

   “I said it bothers me, and it does. But it won't go away, either. What you've planned makes the most sense, but I don't have to like it.”

   “Thank you.” Her voice was soft, and she put both arms around me, and we held each other.