The Death of Chaos (31 page)

   “I see. I see, and the look on your face tells me that it must be close to true. Fine, yes, fine, and the word is that you are honest, as honest as any, more honest than any, in fact. You tell me what a fair price might be.”

   “One last question, Master Preltar. You want two compartments. Do you want separate flat lids inside?”

   “Oh, yes. Of course. One would not want anything to mix from the linens to the wools. Yes, very separate compartments.”

   “Eleven golds, and I'll deliver it anywhere around Kyphrien.” With his mention of Ruzor, I wasn't about to commit to that.

   His lips pursed for a moment. “More than I had thought, yes, more, but Hermiel had said it would be fifteen and not a copper less.” He smiled. “In these things, she is often closer to the coin than I. Done for eleven, and I would hope that it could be done before the harvest.”

   “I would hope so, also.”

   “A pleasure doing business with you, Master Lerris. A pleasure, indeed, and if you need the finest and softest wool in Kyphros, Preltar will have it. Yes, indeed, we will have it.”

   After he rode off I wiped my forehead and took a deep pull of cold water, afraid that my tongue might race away after listening to his rapid words.

   I finished sketching what Preltar wanted before I went back to the design for Minister Zeiber. Then I harnessed the cart and drove down to Faslik's. I didn't see Wegel, but one of Faslik's older sons helped me. The wood for both pieces came to nearly seven golds, although that really wasn't right, because I'd have some left over, and in time, the remnants were often sufficient for smaller pieces. At least they had been when I had worked in Destrin's shop, and Uncle Sardit had assured me that such was often the case.

   That night, after I unloaded and racked the wood, with Krystal gone, Rissa and I had leftover stew with fresh bread. I climbed into bed early to get the weight off my leg.

   I didn't drop off to sleep immediately, not with my mind going over Minister Zeiber's commission. Why had he done it? Was he trying to get around Mureas and to Krystal through me? Talkative as he had been, Preltar had almost been a relief, although his tactics had probably gotten him the chest cheaper than I would have offered. The next time, if there were to be a next time, would be different. I just hadn't run into a Preltar before, and I learn better from experience, as I had unhappily discovered. Others' words didn't always mean something to me, unfortunately, as both Justen and my father and Uncle Sardit-and I-had discovered.

   Grrrrrurrr...

   Although the rain had stopped, the wind had picked up after I had put out the lanterns, and sometimes the house timbers groaned in the wind. I hadn't noticed the sound at dinner, but in the darkness I did.

   The sound seemed familiar-familiar beyond even the sound itself. Certainly, the groaning happened in any high wind, but, as I lay in my bed wishing Krystal were there, the repeated groans reminded me of something else.

   My father had always made me try to follow the winds, but the winds didn't sound like that. I lay in the darkness and tried to recall where that sound had come from. The house had certainly groaned in the wind many times before, but I'd never had the feeling before. Why not? What had happened?

   Grrrrurrrrr...

   Gerlis! The feeling beneath the ground in the brimstone spring valley! The groaning of hot molten rock and fire...

   I cast my thoughts downward, and let my mind follow my senses through the clay, through the rocks, this time not forcing them, but following the broader paths of order. It seemed almost effortless-until deep below Kyphros I could feel the mixing of iron and chaos, chaos and iron. And the iron held the chaos, no matter how much the chaos twisted.

   Beneath the earth, the intertwining of order and chaos seemed more complex. Why was the Balance more simple in the open air than beneath the surface of the earth? Or was everything more complex beneath what seemed to be?

   I tried to let my senses pass through the subtle mixtures of ordered red and white iron and white-red chaos that seemed pure fiery destruction. Mixtures of order and chaos, patterns intertwining, caught my senses, and I felt myself drawn to them. There-an upwelling of pure black, somehow brilliant white-red simultaneously, twisted around a fountain of white tinged with red, and.beyond it a rhythmic pulsing of smaller order-beats against a squarer kind of chaos, like a level almost, except how could chaos have any order or form? How could chaos be like a level?

   Had there always been such an intertwining of order and chaos? I tried to let myself drift along the lines of order, along the forces that made Gerlis's and Antonin's powers seem small, toward a small fountain of blackness that somehow seemed to geyser deep out of the melting rocks far below, far below Kyphros. Even as my senses drew near, the fountain changed, and a torrent of white boiled around the blackness, and red chaos oozed, then spurted forth.

   A cool thread of black beckoned, and for an instant, I felt as though I almost understood the interweavings of the patterns, like the grains of a perfect inlay on a lorken table.

   A line of molten chaos, red with dull white, lashed from nowhere, and needles like knives burned through me. Another, thicker band of white began to twine around my senses, dragging me deeper into the depths. Realizing that I could get trapped within the depths, like Justen had somehow trapped the wizards of Frven, I tried to wrench free-even as another thinner white line slashed at me again, moving impossibly quickly in the deeps.

   A band of black, ordered iron, ripped at me, and another line of white, tinged with red, slashed, and my soul and my face burned. Beneath Kyphros, in those depths, I struggled, recalling belatedly, again, Justen's cautions, and lessons.

   I forced myself, my senses, into a ball of self.

   I am me! I am Lerris! Lerris... Lerris... LERRIS!!!!

   The lashes of chaos and order continued, but I could feel their powers weakening, and I redoubled my efforts, trying to master myself before chaos and order did.

   I am me! Me... me... ME!!!!!

   An image formed-one that I knew was not real-and yet it was.

   A figure in green stepped forward, out of the depths, lifting a blade. I strained to see the face, but shadows remained across the face of the soldier who carried no shield, only the short cavalry blade. Then, out of the shadows, two soulful eyes pierced me.

   I died for you, and death is chaos. You, the great wizard, and you have left me in the depths, and I followed you and saved you. You have multiplied death, with fire and brimstone, and never will I see Barrabra again.

   Though I could not move, though my senses and body were separated, I shuddered, then tried to look through the figure with my order senses, but only the tiniest pulses of energy appeared behind the image that extended a blade that became a staff as it was extended-a staff filled with the fire of chaos.

   Take it... it is yours... great master of chaos...

   Master of chaos? Never! I tried to push the staff away.

   ... take if...

   The figure of Shervan hurled the staff at me, and a dull aching smashed across my chest.

   ... it is yours, great wizard, great master of chaos...

   The image of the outlier faded, but another appeared, that of a dark-haired woman in white. She smiled, and beckoned, but an ugly burned slash across her neck looked like a second mouth, gaping, opening...

   ... oh, Lerris, you loved me, or you loved the body I held, and you killed me... you loved me... and I suffered this from your love... I gave up my life so that your love could live, and you threw it away...

   No! I did not love you. I never loved you.

   ... but you did, and you hated her... and you twisted her and killed me...

   You killed yourself. You took what never belonged to you!

   Those white-clad arms grasped for me, and I threw up a shield, but a finger, impossibly long, reached out and seized my left arm, and those nails flared fire, and I could feel my flesh sizzling, smell the stench of burned flesh.

   ... you loved her, and your love killed me... and will kill her...

   I pushed away the image of Sephya, and yet another rose out of the endless depths beneath Kyphros-a sandy-haired woman in green leathers with a jagged scar across her cheek urged her mount toward me, then reined up. Her shortsword jabbed at my breast.

   ... great wizard, great warrior... the greatest in all Candar...

   Great warrior? Not me! Great wizard?

   ... the greatest... for who else has dared the depths and survived the firebolts of chaos? Who else... tell me that I did not die for a weakling. Tell me I did not die for nothing...

   With all the burning and pain, I could feel tears. Had Freyda died for nothing? Had Justen been right? No! I refused to accept that, and I thrust her away. But before she faded, the flat side of the sword, thrown in disgust, slammed against my right arm. Flat side or not, it hurt.

   ... come... great bearer of destruction...join us... Another figure rose from the swirling fog of order and chaos-a man cloaked in white, who smiled, and his smile was sparkling dust, as were his body and his garments down to his white boots.

   Behind him, I could feel rising hordes of the dead, could feel the crimson- and green-cloaked soldiers, the white-cloaked figures of chaos wizards.... join us...

   Red-whitened ashes flowed from one arm... while the other bore four blackened spots, burned through white cloak and skin and flesh, bums aching with the pain beyond pain.... join us...

   I looked dully at the wizard. What couldn't I see? Why did every figure I thrust away bring up another, and more pain, more injuries?

   ... join us... great wizard... join us, for you deceive yourself as you believe we deceived you... believer in order alone, believer in deception... deception...

   A firebolt seared my chest. Smoke rose, and I could smell singed hair-mine.

   ... join us... you cannot escape... you are a hero... and heroes never escape... they must always save someone else... until they are lost... and you will be lost to your heroism, great wizard... join us...

   ...cannot escape... cannot escape-the thought hammered at me. Cannot escape... what couldn't I escape? Being a hero?

   Then I swallowed, and ignored the bums, the smoke, the pain, and I held out my arms, inviting the dread figures to me, for they were me, and I was them.

   A dull wailing rose and fell somewhere in the depths... and the depths rumbled.

   I dropped the frail shields I had raised and waited. Grrrurrrr... rrrrrrurrr...

   Order and chaos swirled through me, and I knew-knew that they were not separate, but two sides of the same coin, knew that one could fight neither chaos nor order, but only those who misused one side of that coin. I knew, too, that the evil fostered by Recluce would be countered by an equal evil, and I shuddered. So did the earth.

   The chaos and the order slashed through me, burning, but both were mine, and could be no one else's.

   Finally, I lay there, sweating, for a long time before I lurched upright and lit the lamp. I could feel my eyes widen as I took in the singe marks and burns that outlined where my body had rested on the sheet, and the burns on the quilt.

   I staggered toward the small mirror. My body was crisscrossed with burns, and blisters crossed my reddened face. My head throbbed, as though it had been squeezed between the jaws of my own wood presses. Small sharp knives stabbed through my eyes.

   Finally, while I felt like shaking my head, I dared not, for I felt as if it would have fallen off.

   Slowly, I trudged to the kitchen and lit a lamp. Then I pumped some water and slowly blotted my face and the burns on my body. A heavy dark welt was turning into an ugly bruise on my right arm, as was another across my chest. Five oozing bums marked my left forearm.

   With what little order strength I had left, I tried to keep chaos from the wounds as I washed away the stench of brimstone in the dim lamplight. I kept bathing the worst of the burns in cold water until the fire subsided. “Master Lerris...”

   I didn't even realize I was naked as I turned. “Ohhhhh...”

   Rissa went down like an unsupported sack of flour. Did I look that bad? I was certain it hadn't been my naked body. She'd clearly seen naked males before. I looked down.

   I didn't look wonderful, with welts, burns, bruises, cuts- and all from just lying in my bed and speculating and seeking out order in the depths beneath?

   No wonder a lot of mages didn't survive very long. I pulled on an old shirt, which was loose enough not to bind, before I blotted Rissa's face. She finally sat up, shuddering. “I'm sorry, Rissa. I didn't mean to disturb you.”

   “What... be... you... doing?”

   Her words seemed to waver in and out of my ears, but I caught the general idea and answered. “Learning about being a mage-the hard way. I don't seem to be able to learn any other way.”

   “Oh... Master Lerris... when will you be learning not to meddle?” Rissa straightened herself and got to her feet.

   “Probably never.”

   “Darkness help those around you. Darkness help us all...” She swallowed. “Like the commander says, you were born to be a hero, and that is a terrible burden.”

   “I'm all right,” I sighed. “And there's nothing you can do tonight.”

   “Darkness... cook for a wizard... and he boils himself... terrible world we live in... terrible...” She walked toward her room at the back of the house, and I set down the damp cloth and headed for the bedroom. I'd worry about cleaning things up in the morning-assuming nothing else rose out of the depths to smite me.

   I eased myself back into bed-on Krystal's side-the unburned, unsinged side. Tomorrow, I'd have to send Rissa to buy linens.

   At first, I couldn't sleep, not with the aches and pains, nor with the endless questions, although it helped to leave my eyes closed. Why was seeking order and chaos in the ground easier? By rights, it ought to have been more difficult, since earth and clay and rock were far heavier than air.