The Death of Chaos (45 page)

WITH EACH STEP, Gairloch looked more like a small roan horse than a pony, and the rest of us like dust-covered statues- except for the sneezing.

   No matter what I tried, I kept sneezing, and so did Weldein and Fregin. Fregin's nose was as red as a hearth, but somehow, Berli had managed to avoid the sneezing all through the long ride.

   My rear was sore, and I'd already forgotten how good it had felt to sleep in my own bed the one night we had stopped at home, rather than in the barracks in Kyphrien. My own bed or not, though, I missed Krystal. I hadn't missed the brawwking of the chickens.

   Wegel had looked so mournful in stammering through his explanations of what the little girls needed that I'd let him use scraps and mismatched lumber left over to see what he could do to make a table and stool for the cot. I also suggested he try to get some leftovers from his father. It had been his idea, and it wasn't a bad one, but he needed to do some of the asking as well.

   Rissa had just shaken her head when we rode out, and the two girls had watched wide-eyed. Wegel had waved the broom, and I'd wanted to tell him that we weren't exactly on the most glorious of quests, that getting tied up with the collision between order and chaos was going to be messy, and, if I weren't lucky and careful, possibly fatal. The disturbing thought that followed was that it could be fatal even if I were lucky and careful.

   Still, the ride north had been quiet, almost too quiet, with the marketplace in Kyphrien a hushed shade of its former self, and the roads deserted and the dust thick and sometimes undisturbed.

   Kkhchewww! I looked up.

   “You sneezed. You actually sneezed.”

   Berli looked embarrassed. Then she shrugged.

   “... don't believe it...” muttered Fregin. “Friggin' dust finally got to her.”

   I patted Gairloch on the neck and wished I hadn't as more dust swirled up into my nose, and I sneezed.

   “See?” Berli said.

   The kaystone on the right side of the road announced that Meltosia was three kays ahead.

   We stopped there for a midday meal at Mama Parlaan's, where we ate more burkha, as hot as I'd ever had, and where everyone was quite polite, and all too quiet. I began to dread reaching Tellura.

   The dust hung over everything, and seemed baked on me as Gairloch carried me northwest toward the small town and outpost where I had first entered Kyphros at a time that seemed so long ago. Sometimes, three years is more than a lifetime.

   I wasn't too thrilled about stopping in Tellura, not with the casualties I had created, and I especially wasn't looking forward to seeing Shervan's sister Barrabra. But it was the last place to resupply before we reached the wizards' road, and I would have felt wrong in avoiding Tellura, hard as I knew it was going to be.

   The outliers' station looked the same-soft white plaster walls, red tile roof, sitting in the midst of red dust and more red dust.

   We reined up outside the front of the covered portico.

   Whuffff... Like the rest of us, Gairloch snorted out dust.

   “The Finest! The Finest!” A small girl ran up inside the building.

   I dismounted and handed the reins to Weldein.

   “But...”

   “I need to do something.”

   Barrabra's ample figure stood silently under the archway in the late afternoon sun. As I walked up the three steps, I could see thin streaks of white in the blond hair, and lines in her face.

   “Master Wizard...” She inclined her head, but there was a darkness in her once-happy Kyphran eyes that had not been there before.

   “Barrabra... I am sorry.” I bowed my head. “Words don't mean much. There's not a lot I can say or do to take away the pain. I wanted you to know that I owe my life to Shervan and the others.”

   For a long time, she looked at me, just looked, before she asked, “Why are you here?”

   “I'm going to try to stop the Hamorians. They're going to use the hidden wizards' roads to take over Candar.”

   “Ah... if it is not the Prefect of Gallos, then it is the Emperor of Hamor... why will they not leave us alone?”

   “I don't know, not really. People talk about order and chaos, and sometimes they are just names without meaning when those we love die.”

   “You are older.”

   “Perhaps.”

   “You will age even more.”

   “Probably.”

   “Tell me... how did Shervan save your life?”

   “There's not much to tell. We charged a chaos wizard, and he threw his sword at the wizard. The wizard had to stop the sword, and that let me do what I had to do.”

   “I see.”

   “No... lady... you don't.” Weldein stood behind me. “Lerris led the charge on his pony. He carried only a staff. The chaos wizard broke Lerris's arms and legs, and half his body was burned. Shervan and Lerris saved hundreds of troopers. I was one of those they saved. They carried Lerris back to Kyphros on a cart, and no one thought he would live. Now he's going out to face an army alone-except for us.”

   Barrabra looked at Weldein. Weldein met her look.

   Finally, she looked down, then gave me a wan smile. “I knew you were unlike the others, but we had hoped so many would not die.”

   “So did I. So did I.”

   “Pendril died. Niklos died, too.”

   Nothing I could say would change that. For a time, the three of us stood there. Then Barrabra shrugged, a shrug of resignation, sadness, acceptance, and called, “Cirla!”

   The young blond woman-barely beyond girlhood and wearing die same maroon trousers and shirt she had more than a year earlier-rushed from the doorway.

   “You remember the wizard?”

   Cirla looked down at the tiles that comprised the floor of the covered porch.

   “Would you show them where to stable their horses? They need rest before they go out to fight.”

   Cirla looked up. Her green eyes met mine, without resentment, and I turned and followed her, reclaiming Gairloch.

   Grooming Gairloch seemed to take forever, and I felt as if there were twice as much dust on me when I was done. I tried to brush off the worst of the dust once I stepped out of the stall.

   “Why did Pendril have to die?”

   I hadn't realized Cirla had just waited outside the stall.

   I swallowed. Finally, I answered her. “It didn't have to be Pendril; it just happened that way. When battles or wars are fought, troopers die.”

   “The blond Finest”-her eyes flickered toward the corner where Weldein was wiping off his saddle-“he said you almost died. Is that true?”

   “Died? That's what they told me. I don't remember much until probably three eight-days after the battle. I couldn't walk for a while, and then I had to use my staff.”

   “Why did you go out to fight?” Her eyes were open, and she wanted an answer.

   “Because I was afraid my consort-I thought she might be killed if I didn't do what I did.”

   “What's her name?”

   “Krystal.”

   “Your consort is the commander, and she might have been killed?”

   “The autarch's commanders fight. The last one was killed in the battle before the one where Shervan and Pendril and Niklos were killed.”

   “But the Emperor of Hamor doesn't fight, and the Prefect didn't.”

   “Should the commander ask outliers like Shervan to fight and maybe die if she always is safe from harm?” I knew Krystal felt that way.

   “Do you feel that way?”

   “No. He's worse,” said Berli, racking her saddle. “He's tough, our wizard is, but he won't ask anyone to fight unless he's in twice as much danger.”

   Cirla looked from the dark-haired woman to me, then shook her head. “No one ever told us.”

   “I wish I had, earlier,” I admitted. “I mean, about how brave Shervan and Pendril were.”

   “I never thought of Shervan as brave. He always talked a lot.”

   “He was brave.” I closed the stall.“He never looked back, never complained.” He'd probably been too brave. “And he did talk a lot. I missed it when I learned he had died.”

   A single bell rang.

   “Dinner is ready,” she announced, turning back toward the wing of the building with the big dining room.

   Berli, Fregin, and Weldein followed me into the long room. The same place at the head of the table was empty. I slowly took it, and Barrabra took the place on the left, the same spot where she had been seated when I first met Shervan.

   “Would you... ?” asked Barrabra, turning to me.

   This time, I did have something to say.

   “When I was last here, I prayed that right-thinking people would have the will to bring order from chaos, and around this table were many right-thinking people who did just that. They brought us order at the cost of their lives, and yet, chaos again threatens. Chaos will always threaten, and order often requires all that we have to give. May the sacrifices and the hopes of all those who have made our lives a better and more ordered place always be remembered.” I swallowed and looked at the table for a moment.

   “He sounds like a wizard now,” coughed the old woman. If I recalled correctly, she had said I hadn't sounded like a wizard the first time I had come to Tellura.

   Cirla brought in the casserole this time, and the aroma of spices filled the room-chilies, and who knew what else.

   “Smells good,” whispered Fregin.

   Barrabra lifted the basket of bread and held it before me. I broke off a chunk and then held the basket for her.

   “Thank you.”

   I passed the basket to Berli and waited to serve myself some of the casserole. Weldein took a heaping measure, as did the young outlier beside him, before the dish reached me. I hadn't felt that hungry, but the lamb and spices prompted me to take a normal helping before passing the dish to Barrabra. She took a small portion.

   I tasted the chilied lamb, the same dish I'd had before, but it didn't seem nearly so spicy, and I was far hungrier than I had first realized.

   Slowly, slowly... the conversation picked up at the far end of the table.

   “According to the peddler... dreadful doings there was in Freetown... the Regent turned into flame and a Hamor warship went up in flames, almost at the pier...”

   “The black devils, it was, with one of their invisible ships.”

   “The mighty Drakka. All her armor didn't stop the black devils.”

   “A terrible time it is, these days,” offered the older woman in yellow, making the sign of the one-god worshipers, “like as to the end of the Legend when chaos dies...”

   “How can chaos die?” Cirla looked toward me.

   I had to swallow a mouthful of lamb before I could answer. “The only way I know is if order also dies. The Balance seems powerful enough to ensure that.”

   “Could order die?”

   Could it? What would be the death of order-or chaos? “I suppose anything is possible, but right now, I can't think of a way to destroy either.” I had to shrug again.

   Cirla pursed her lips.

   “They say that the wizard has killed three chaos-masters.” The low comment came from the other end of the long table.

   “You believe in that?”

   “Why not? It's a good story.”

   “It's also true,” added Berli.

   “You saw this? With your own eyes?”

   “I saw the third wizard perish, and a friend was saved when he destroyed the first one.” Berli shrugged. “As for the second one... he doesn't exist anymore, but I wasn't there.”

   “What do you know about the wizard?” the young outlier asked of Fregin.

   “Don't know about any wizards,” mumbled Fregin with a mouth full of lamb. “Saw him break a trooper's wrist with a staff while he held off a dozen armed men with that piece of wood. Saw the toughest officer of the Finest bow more to him than the autarch. That's enough for me.”

   “The wizard is what the wizard is,” announced Barrabra. “Enough of such foolishness.”

   Even Fregin paused from shoveling in food, but not for long.

   “How are the groves?” I asked.

   “They are dry, and we are lucky that the winter was so wet, for the summer will be longer and hotter yet, and perhaps the fall, too, according to the ancient.”

   “I am not that old,” snapped the elderly woman in yellow. “It takes no idiot to recognize that heavy winter rains can only lead to dry summers and drier falls. The clouds, they hold only so much rain.” She turned to me. “Is that not so, Master Wizard?”

   “Each cloud can only hold so much rain, but the winds and the oceans tell how many clouds there will be.” I didn't wish to contradict her, but clouds alone did not hold the answer.

   “And the winds, they are from the dry north, and not from the wet south. So we will have no rain.” She gave the outlier a sharp nod.

   He shrugged.

   After dinner, I sat in the dimness of the portico.

   “Master Wizard?” Barrabra stood under the archway behind me.

   I gestured to the bench across from me. “Please sit down.”

   “I would not wish to disturb you...”

   “Please sit down.”

   A single birdcall echoed from somewhere, and I listened, but the call was not repeated.

   “You are sad to see us.” She brushed her hair back off her shoulder, and I noticed that she no longer wore the green combs. “The combs-Niklos gave them to me.”

   After a time, I answered. “It hurts to come back here. When I was last here, people sang, and they laughed. Now... you are unhappy, and I helped cause that sadness.”

   “But you came.”

   “I should have come sooner.”

   “You came when you could, and that is all we could expect of a great wizard.” She brushed her long hair back again, and I thought of the green combs of Niklos and knew she would never wear them again.

   “I am not a great wizard. I'm just a man-one who's not very old-who's trying to do what's right. That's hard because no one can tell you what is right and because, if you're honest, you have to question even your own idea of what is right.” I snorted. “And then you have to act, and that's when everyone gets hurt.”

   “You are older than you think. What you do will make you wiser and older before your time. Niklos and I had time to be young. I fear you will not.” She sighed. “I was angry at you, and then I saw you, and the faces of those who came with you. Now I am not angry, and I am glad I have lived as I have, and loved as I have, and I am even glad Shervan was with you.” She stood up, and brushed back her long hair yet again. “And Pendril. And even Niklos. They did not have to carry what you carry, and what you must.” She laughed a soft laugh. “I hope you will remember what it is to be young and to love. It does not last long, and less for the mighty.” She took a step and added, “Best you sleep while you can, Great Wizard.”