The Death of Chaos (41 page)

THE THREE DRUIDS stood in the grove of the ancient one, watching the sands that depicted all of Candar shift and boil.

   The youngest druid held her lips tightly, recalling another time when she had watched the sands, then in hope. In the space before her, under the ancient oak that was older than Recluce, older than the citadel of Jellico, older even than ancient and departed Westwind, she watched the sands boil, changing from white to black and black to white.

   “The angels will not return, not for all the songs, not for all of the cold iron of the machines,” said the male druid. His thin silver hair, his thin face, both topped a frame so frail that it seemed closer to vapor than flesh and bone.

   “The price will be paid,” stated the other woman. “None have paid this price in generations, and the arrogance of the Emperor will ensure that his pride will be laid low.”

   “His will not be the only pride laid low,” said the youngest druid.

   “Oh, Dayala, never has it been easy for you and Justen.”

   Dayala smiled, sadly. “I will be with him this time, Syodra. I will leave the Great Forest.”

   “I thought you would be, should be.”

   “All songs are sung a last time,” offered the old singer. “A last time when the words regain their purity and power.”

   “In Balance, no less.” Syodra laughed, but the tears flowed from her eyes as her fingers stroked the smooth-gnarled bark of the oak.

   Dayala's lips brushed the fingers of the singer, and her fingers squeezed those of Syodra, before she walked away from the grove and toward the river, and the boat, that would carry her to Diehl-and the journey beyond.

AFTER KRYSTAL LEFT for Ruzor again, the weather got even hotter, and the dust got drier and redder, and I took a lot of cold showers for a lot of reasons, but the effect wasn't all that lasting.

   What was lasting was the continuing distant rumbling of chaos from beneath eastern Candar, almost as if it were moving closer to Kyphros, but I still couldn't tell except that it seemed stronger, louder, as it echoed through the depths. Either that, or I was becoming more adept at reading and sensing the depth.

   That morning, more than an eight-day after she had left, hot as it was, I got out the staff again and trudged to the stables, raising a slight cloud of dust, and trying to ignore the brawwking of the chickens.

   After feeding Gairloch and the mare, I began to practice, trying to step up my speed against the demon-damned swinging bag, as I did most mornings. One good thing about the bag was that I didn't have any restraints against delivering really hard blows. That way I could get some exercise and work on delivering more power. Somehow I worried that I might need it.

   After a long series where I actually got the better of the heavy sandbag, stopping its swing cold without totally shivering my own arms, I paused to catch my breath and wipe my forehead. Of course, it came away muddy from my sweat and the reddish-brown dust that seemed to be everywhere.

   “It is a bad time when good men practice with weapons,” said Rissa from the open stable door.

   I wiped my forehead again.

   Whhheeeee... That was Gairloch's only comment on the matter.

   Braawkk... Even the chickens seemed to have a viewpoint of sorts.

   “It's worse when good men are bad with weapons.” Rissa shook her head, and, at that point Jydee and Myrla skittered out the door behind Rissa, giggling as they went. My audience had been larger than I'd thought, and that was bad and good. Good because I'd been wrapped up in exercising. Bad because I hadn't sensed them. Did that mean that when I was exercising hard, my order senses were blunted?

   Not that long after I'd put away the staff, I began to work on plans for a tall storage chest for clothes-a bigger and deeper version of Durrik's spice chest-not that I was getting anything from it, since I hadn't the faintest idea who would buy something like that.

   Finally, I put down the quill and studied Antona's desk and chair. I hadn't attempted to deliver them. First, I didn't know where to cart the two pieces, exactly, and, second, my making inquiries about the Green Isle would have set off a few rumors I would rather have avoided. So I had offered Guysee a few coppers to deliver the envelope the day before.

   That gave her coins, and I certainly didn't want to send poor tongue-tied Wegel off to Antona's establishment. If he wanted that kind of pleasure, he'd have to find it himself, not through my assistance, indirect or otherwise.

   My fingers brushed the cherry. I'd miss both of the pieces, because I had done-or we had-good work, and the carved and inlaid A was far better than I could have easily done.

   After Guysee had returned the afternoon before, she had solemnly informed me that the lady in green had taken the envelope and laughed. “So cautious is Master Lerris!”

   Cautious? In some ways, I guessed. Was I too cautious?

   With a deep breath I picked up the quill again and dipped it in the ink, but I hadn't drafted four lines before there was a clatter of horses in the yard. Antona and her carriage, and a wagon that bore the painted black outline of two horses and a wagon- Werfel's sign-rolled into the yard. Werfel was not driving the wagon, but a thin gray-haired man was, accompanied by a younger and burlier fellow.

   I went out into the heat of the yard. “Greetings, Lady Antona.”

   “You are always so polite, Master Lerris. Let us see your masterwork.”

   I inclined my head and held open the door.

   After she entered, Antona looked at Wegel, steadily, until he blushed.

   “Don't be embarrassed, young fellow, just because a bawdy old woman enjoys the sight of you. Your master's too cautious. Besides, looking that way at him could cost me my head, and I'm right fond of it.”

   Her head? Surely, Krystal wasn't that jealous.

   “I wouldn't bet on that,” said Antona. “You might, but I wouldn't.” She walked toward the desk, sitting in the open space back from the door, her fingers slipping over the finish of the desk and the chair. Her eyes rested on the inlaid carved A where the darker lorken stood out-but not ostentatiously- from the lighter cherry.

   “Why did you make the inlay darker, rather than lighter?”

   “It's less obvious, Lady. I didn't think you would wish to flaunt it.”

   She laughed. “Master Lerris, you're a wise man.”

   “Only about some things.” I still recalled her veiled reference to Krystal.

   “But you understand your weaknesses, and that makes you stronger.”

   “You're far too kind.”

   “Me? Kind? You are the charitable one.”

   “For doing what I like to do?” I tried to change the subject.

   “You like to craft. Few people truly enjoy what they do.” Her gray eyes sparkled for a moment before she asked,“Would you do a dining set for me? Chairs like you did for Hensil, and a table?”

   “Now?” I couldn't help the surprise. No one was commissioning anything in Kyphros, which made a strange kind of sense. A good piece of woodworking will last for generations, but people don't make that commitment when they aren't certain about the future.

   “Don't sound so surprised. My business, unlike most, does better in hard times. People need consolation.”

   I nodded. That made sense. “It would be costly, and it would take longer.”

   “That would be fine.” She frowned. “The chairs cost Hensil sixteen golds.”

   What didn't the woman know? “That was rather a bargain.”

   “I won't quibble. Say thirty golds for the chairs, but I'd like twelve. Then another fifty golds for a table to the standard of the desk.”

   I thought. I'd never had anything close to a commission that huge. Eighty golds! “I will have to have a deposit on something that large, Lady, if only for the wood. And it will probably take most of a season to obtain and season enough cherry.”

   “Always honest, Master Lerris. That's what I like about you. Are you that honest in the bedroom? No, don't answer that.” She laughed. “That wasn't fair. Fun, but not fair.”

   I knew I was blushing.

   She handed me a purse with two hands. “There are eighty golds there. Fifty for the desk and chair, and a deposit for the dining set.”

   I tried to take the heavy leather bag graciously, but it's rather hard to take a bag that weighs more than half a stone gracefully.

   I tucked it inside the empty moisture pot for the moment when Antona went to summon the carters, and while Wegel opened the other half of the door, the half that usually was closed except when we lugged in lumber or eased out finish work.

   “Easy with that desk. It's a masterwork, and you dent it or scratch it, and Werfel won't be able to find a hole deep enough to hide you,” announced Antona politely, without raising her voice. Of course, I could have used her tone to etch designs in brass, but she didn't yell or shout, and I had some idea that she expected to be obeyed.

   The two carters loaded the desk, and I helped pad and anchor it.

   Guysee, Jydee, and Myrla watched from the end of the yard next to the rough cot that the henhouse had become. The second henhouse was rougher, much rougher, than the first, probably because Wegel had done most of it, but the hens didn't need crafting. They needed protection, mainly from wild dogs and mountain cats, although I hadn't seen many cat traces.

   Both girls watched with wide eyes, Guysee with a certain sadness, as Antona's carriage bore her back to Kyphrien.

   I sent Wegel out to the shed for some lamp oil and to check how much grain was in the feed barrel. I didn't need either, but I wanted to get the golds into the hidden strongbox in the small storeroom as quickly as possible, all but a few, anyway.

   After that, since we didn't have any other great and pressing work, I harnessed the mare and took the wagon and Wegel with me to Faslik's to see if the millmaster had any more cherry for Antona's dining set.

   He didn't, and, like me, he wanted a deposit. I gave him five golds and a promise of five more in an eight-day.

   When we got back to the shop, I handed Wegel several sheets of paper. “You sketch a design for the chair backs-one that we can make and one that fits with the desk and chair we just delivered.”

   “M-me?”

   “Why not? I'm not saying we'll use the design. That depends. But you need to practice that now, too. Any half-decent journeyman can join wood smoothly. What you make when you join it is what determines how good you are.”

   “B-but...”

   I held up my hand. “I've watched you carve. You have a feel for design. You just have to work on showing it on paper, not in the wood. How else will you learn crafting? The knife or chisel doesn't always lead you there. Sometimes you have to see what you want in your mind, and then you have to put it on paper so that others will know what you are thinking.”

   Half the time, I suspect my sketches had sold the pieces, and I really wasn't an artist, but most people just can't visualize what something will look like, whether it's a chair or a painting.

   Wegel's brow knitted up, but he didn't say anything.

   I gestured to the paper again. “Go ahead. It can't hurt.”

“QUIET.” JUSTEN EASED Rosefoot along the narrow road, bordering the walls of Jellico. Unable to see with his eyes, he let his perceptions guide him and his pony toward the western road and away from Jellico, away from the Viscount and the coming battle.

   Behind him, Tamra struggled to sense her surroundings, struggled to keep her shields in place and her mount from betraying her location while following the gray mage.

   Click... click...

   “You hear something?” echoed a voice from the wall overhead.

   “What? You think the sundevils are already outside the walls?”

   “Who knows... wish I were out there.”

   “You leave, and the Viscount'll have your guts for bowstrings. He's not letting anyone leave.”

   “Tell me... the merchants are screaming...”

   “There's something down there.”

   “What? A stray dog? Go ahead. Waste a quarrel, but you'll wish you had it when the sundevils get here. See that dust? That's them. Won't be long before the thunderguns are booming.”

   “Shit.”

   “It is, isn't it?”

   Justen smiled tightly in his cocoon of darkness.

   Tamra wiped her forehead, struggled with her shields, and tried to keep close to Justen and Rosefoot.

   ... click... click...

   “... swear I heard something...”

   “... forget it...”

   As the two mages slipped through their own darkness toward the southwest, the heavy cloud of dust rolled toward Jellico.

I PICKED UP the cedar length from the back of the bench, glancing across at the drawing board where Wegel was sweating over the chair designs for Antona. He was beginning to discover the difference between creating what was easy and creating what was necessary.

   I looked at the roughed-out figure. A face existed somewhere inside the old cedar, but I hadn't found it yet. So I sat on the stool and trimmed away a bit more of the wood, bringing out more of the general shape of the face.

   Grrrrurrr... rrrrr... Setting the cedar down, I stood. Thin shiverings of... something... seemed to echo through the ground and stones beneath Kyphros, almost as if ripples of chaos ran through the ground. Ripples of chaos? From where?

   I set down the knife beside the cedar and steadied myself with a hand on the edge of the workbench.

   “M-m-master L-L-Lerris...”

   “I'm all right. Just a bit hot.” I walked slowly out of the shop and then back through the empty kitchen to the rear porch where I plopped down onto the bench.

   I tried to let my thoughts follow those waves of chaos, focused chaos, back through the ground, but I lost them beyond Kyphrien, somewhere short of the Little Easthorns.

   Somewhere short of the Little Easthorns? Not bad for someone who couldn't tell what was in the upper air within a few kays. Then again, I wasn't an air wizard, and it appeared as though I might indeed be an earth wizard of sorts.

   Braaawkkk... brawwkkk...

   “Shoo!”

   The chicken brawwkkked, but just kept scratching at the ground.

   An earth wizard who couldn't even shoo away a chicken, I decided. I shivered as I recalled the power of chaos in the last tremor I had sensed. Chaos coming from the Easthorns, and seemingly moving westward.

   It had to be linked somehow to Hamor. Hamor was using the mechanical order and the Balance. Logically, it made no sense that chaos was involved, and my father would have told me so. But chaos seemed always to hover around violence and conquest, and Hamor was certainly involved in that. And besides, it felt as if Hamor were involved. And Krystal had told me to trust my feelings. Even the autarch had.

   I wiped my forehead, glancing toward the west and the Westhorns I could not see, but only sense vaguely. The sun, reddish in the late afternoon, hung over the top of the hill.

   Krystal and Kasee had planned the defense of Kyphros on the assumption that Leithrrse would use the Hamorian fleet to reduce Ruzor. But by now Leithrrse had to know about that defense. If he learned about it, wouldn't he change his plans? I knew I would.

   Were I in Leithrrse's shoes, I'd use the wizards' roads through the Little Easthorns and come down through Tellura and Meltosia. Whether Leithrrse knew that most of the northern outliers had been wiped out in the battle for the brimstone spring was another question, but I doubted that the outliers at full strength could have stopped the Hamorians and their rifle-armed troops. Kasee's troops were loo few and too spread.

   Yet the chaos hadn't come from the Little Easthorns, but beyond, farther to the east. Also, I doubted that the wizards' roads were passable farther east. Otherwise, Antonin would have used them.

   I swallowed. Was someone-Leithrrse?-using chaos to restore all the old roads that the white wizards had used to dominate ancient Candar? Or could they just march over the blocked parts? Then Hamor could move armies quickly down the center of Candar, or by sea.

   The wizards' road left Tellura and Meltosia open to the Hamorian troops... I frowned. The road also left Gallos open, and wouldn't Leithrrse take Gallos first? But why? He could use Ruzor to reinforce a conquered Kyphros and outflank the Prefect on both sides. Certis would fall, or had it already? There was so much I didn't know. Still, once the Hamorians had Kyphrien, they could use the river and the river road as a highway right into Ruzor.

   The wizards' roads were one of the tools that the ancient white wizards had used 'to bring most of Candar under their rule. So far, the Hamorians hadn't missed a trick. Why would they now?

   Had Krystal or Kasee thought about that? I took a deep breath. Maybe I was going off on feelings I couldn't even trust.

   Another rippling shiver of chaos seemed to echo from the . rocks below. That I wasn't imagining.

   I could run off, or I could take a little time and go to Ruzor. Besides, I wanted to see Krystal, especially before I went off investigating more chaos and the person-or people-who wielded it. I also wanted to think more about it, and to talk to Krystal. Was it all in my imagination? If it weren't, though, Kyphros was facing an even bigger problem.

   I stood up and looked toward the coming sunset.

   “Rissa!”

   One way or another I couldn't do anything to help Krystal by staying in Kyphrien, and it would be at least several eight-days before Faslik had anywhere near enough cherry for Antona's dining set and chairs.

   “Rissa!”

   I walked back to the kitchen to start getting ready for the morning's trip.