The Death of Chaos (58 page)

I DIDN'T SEEM to be able to do anything about it. Every conversation we had turned into an argument, until I was afraid to open my mouth around Krystal. I saw less and less of her, except at night, and there was a wall down the middle of the bed. I felt as if I'd been hit with an iron-tipped staff from behind.

   I decided to talk to Tamra one morning after we sparred. She didn't seem any angrier at me than before, and she didn't try any harder to maim or dismember me.

   As I wiped my face, Weldein stepped up. “You've gotten better, ser.”

   “Me?”

   “Yes, you,” said Tamra. “You were using your anger. I really had to work. With a little more effort, you could be dangerous.”

   “I wouldn't want to be anywhere near him,” said Weldein with a laugh.

   “I need to talk to you,” I told Tamra.

   “All right.” She looked at Weldein, and he smiled, and faded off to the other side of the courtyard. “What is it?”

   “Krystal.”

   “That's obvious. It's colder than the Roof of the World around you two.”

   “Every time we talk it gets worse.”

   “The problem's simple enough.” Tamra shrugged. “I haven't any idea.how to solve it, though.”

   “It doesn't seem simple to me.”

   We walked to a shaded corner of the yard. Behind us, Weldein and Yelena started working with wands, and the dull sound of heavy wood echoed off the walls.

   “It is, though. You fell in love after Krystal grew up but before you really did.”

   “Huh?”

   “Oh, you were a hero, Lerris, a sort of innocent, what - did - I - do type, but you still hadn't grown up. You still haven't.” She raised a hand. “You're trying. Very trying,” she added with a laugh. “I have to give you that. But Krystal didn't understand you weren't grown. She is the autarch's commander, and you've probably done more for Kyphros on three occasions than she has the whole time she's been here. Not only that, but you're a mastercrafter whom everyone respects and who makes lots of golds. Now, you're becoming a pretty decent warrior, and you're still perfectionistic enough not to want to recognize it. And, like all young bucks, you want-and probably deserve-recognition.”

   “But I couldn't do what Krystal can, not day in and day out.”

   “I'm sure she'll be so pleased to know that she's a better drudge than you could ever be.”

   “That's not what I meant,” I protested.

   “That's what you said, and it is what you really meant. Besides, it's not true. Some of that crafting is dull, dull, dull drudgery, and you excel at that, too.” She smiled brightly. “So... you see why I don't have an answer?”

   “That's not much help.” I wanted to thrash her, really thrash her, with the staff.

   “I can't help you. You need to help yourself.” She paused. “The only one with enough patience to help you might be Dayala.” And she was gone.

   For a time I just stood there.

   Then I trudged out of the courtyard and to the washroom, to wash, and to try to find Dayala. I did not find her until late in the afternoon, after Justen found me and took me off to an audience with the autarch for a detailed report on the destruction of the Hamorian army. Krystal was not there, which seemed odd, until Justen explained it later.

   “You often defer to Krystal, whether you know it or not. So the autarch wanted to hear a more honest and complete story.”

   After he left, I had to wonder. Was I becoming less honest? How was that possible? I could still use order. Or did others get the impression that I was less honest because I was seeing all sides of things, the greater complexity that Justen had alluded to?

   That bothered me, and I tried to follow Justen to find Dayala, but they both disappeared. So I got something to eat, then went back and reread more of The Basis of Order. After that I decided to dig my tools out of the stable. Surely, I could make myself useful somewhere in helping to rebuild Ruzor.

   So it was late afternoon before Dayala returned and I rapped on her door.

   “Come in, Lerris.”

   Her face still bore a fine tracery of wrinkles, but she no longer looked ancient.

   “You look better.”

   “Thank you. I'm glad that I no longer look ready for the worms.”

   I blushed.

   She smiled. “How might I help you?”

   “Tamra said you were the only one who could.”

   “I am flattered.”

   “You and Justen understand each other,” I blurted out, feeling that if I didn't get it out, I wouldn't. “I feel like every time I turn around, Krystal and I are arguing because she can't understand what I feel and she doesn't think I understand what she feels. And it's getting worse, not better.”

   “You think that I can help.”

   “You understand.”

   “You left Recluce because you did not wish to take the words of others on faith.” She frowned. “Why would you take my words? Or are you hoping I will confirm what you already believe?”

   I almost wished I hadn't come, but I looked at her.

   She sighed. “Go ahead and sit down.”

   I sat on one of the two stools, and she sat cross-legged on the stone floor. It would have been uncomfortable for me, but she didn't seem to mind.

   “You feel she does not understand you.”

   “If she did, she'd know I love her.”

   Dayala laughed. “Love is not based on understanding, but on acceptance.”

   I must have looked confused. She just looked up at me from where she sat on the stones. So I tried to think it out.

   “Justen is better at this than I am, I think, but you would not listen to him,” she added.

   Finally, I said, “You mean Krystal does understand, but she doesn't accept what I'm doing?”

   “You would have to ask her. She might. Understanding is useful only when it leads to acceptance. When it does not, it leads to chaos.”

   “How can we accept each other? We can't even talk.”

   She paused. “I need to talk to Justen. Just wait here.” Still barefooted, she slipped out the door and left me sitting there.

   Outside, a small bird whistled twice. I thought it was a bird, but it could have been a lizard or some trooper.

   Dayala returned before long. “I thought I might be wrong, but... Justen doesn't think so.”

   She looked at me, and it was like looking into the depths of the demon's hell. I thought so, although I'd never done so, but I could feel so much... pain, suffering, ages of birth and death...

   I tried to keep my eyes open, and I did, but I had to stand up.

   “Justen was right.” She took a deep breath. “You can sit down.”

   I sat, feeling I wasn't going to like what came next.

   “Lerris, Justen says this is very simple. You can die younger than you should, by all rights of your talents, and be respected and loved. Or you can be the greatest mage of all time, and leave the world a far worse place. By telling you this, we hope to save you, and the world, great agony.”

   “Me?”

   “If you want to be the greatest mage, all you have to do is walk away from Kyphros, from Recluce. That is all. The rest will happen naturally.”

   “What if I don't want either? Why couldn't I be great and still be respected?”

   “The Balance doesn't work that way, not now.” I stood up. “That's manure. You're no better than my father, or Justen, telling me whatever will make me do what you want.”

   She stood, and blackness rose around her like a storm. So did chaos.

   I walked to the door and turned back. She just stood there, but that order seemed rooted in the earth, and I realized that she was a druid, and I couldn't see a druid, or her, lying.

   Still, I stood there for a long time. So did she, and it almost felt as though the room, and the world, stood teetering on the edge of a knife. Then I took a deep breath and walked back and sat down on the stool.

   Outside, the bird whistled again, and I felt as if I'd stepped away from a cliff.

   “You are generous at heart, and you want Krystal to say that you are generous. You want her to say it again and again. You will give, not just because you wish to give, but because you want everyone to tell you how good you are.”

   I shivered.

   “Goodness is not giving for praise. Goodness is giving when you are cursed, or when your children do not understand and may never understand. Goodness is being silent, when you could have praise, because you know the good you do will be destroyed by praise. The more powerful you become, the harder it will be for you to be honest with yourself, and the more you wrestle with chaos, the harder that honesty becomes. Yet you will have to wrestle with chaos, and every day may be like the times you have wrestled before.”

   I shivered.

   “That is the price of power, and you are powerful, and nothing can take that from you. Without honesty, you will lose. As Antonin did, as once-humble Sammel did.”

   “How do I hold such honesty?”

   “Are you willing to accept total honesty, and another's judgment, a judgment that you can never escape? Will you pay that price?”

   I swallowed. “Yours?”

   She shook her head. “I have lived almost all my life with such a judgment. So has Justen.”

   The tie between them? “You want to link us the way you and Justen are linked?”

   “I do not want anything. You are too strong to listen to anyone you are not forced to listen to.”

   “Why would that make me listen?”

   She smiled, and the darkness rose again.

   I waited.

   “If I die, so does Justen. If he does, so do I. He can no more escape what I feel than I can what he does.”

   I shuddered.

   “Yes.” Dayala waited, then asked, “Are you able to accept such honesty?”

   I thought about asking how it was honest, but after a moment of reflection I understood. Were Krystal tied to me, and I to her, any false feeling would be open, any self-deception obvious. I shivered again. The question of self-deception was coming back again. Could I be honestly self-deceived? Justen had hinted that was possible.

   “After you decide, if you decide, then I will talk to Krystal. She may not agree. And this should not be done unless you both agree.”

   “Could it?”

   “It has been. That link, between Creslin and Megaera, created the greatest good and the greatest evil Candar has ever known, and you, and I, and Justen are still paying for that. Good cannot be forced. Only evil.”

   I could only answer, “I don't know.”

   “You are honest. That is a good place to start.”

   I walked out of her room and down to the harbor. As the sun touched the western plains and the bluff with the center cut out, my feet carried me to the piles of stone that had been the old fort. I stood on the half of the northeast tower that remained and looked out at the flat waters of the harbor, turning from blue to black as the sun set.

   None of my choices were good. I'd touched Antonin, Sephya, Gerlis, and Sammel enough to know that I didn't want to end up like them. I barely knew who I was, and Dayala was telling me that I would have to give up being me, in order to stay honest, because the kind of power I could hold would destroy me through self-deception. And Krystal, would she resent being a check on me? Would she come to hate me? Every time I tried to do something, she seemed to think that I was trying to make her seem less important. Couldn't she see that one of the things she was doing was rejecting my attempts to be honest? Why couldn't she see that, over time, I could not do much more, not if I wanted to live?

   All I had to do was look at my father and Justen and see that. Did she think I was too stupid to understand?

   I stood, watching, listening as the harbor waters lapped at the stones spilled into their dark shallows and depths.

Dellash, Delapra [Candar]

DYRSSE LEANS BACK in the wooden chair, watching the heavyset officer in the tan uniform. The younger man steps out of the full sunlight of the courtyard and looks around, studying the bay below and the rows upon rows of black ships anchored in the bay. From a host of funnels rise thin lines of smoke.

   A faint smile crosses his face as the naval officer turns, his eyes barely resting on the low forested hills to the west before he crosses the covered veranda to the corner table where Dyrsse waits.

   The brown-haired and brown-skinned officer stops and gives Dyrsse the faintest of nods. “Reel Commander Stupelltry, at your service, Marshal Dyrsse.”

   “You and your fleet are most welcome, Fleet Commander.” Dyrsse smiles politely. “Please have a seat.” His almost delicate fingers jab toward the other wooden armchair.

   Stupelltry sits down gracefully. “I am here to serve the Emperor and you, as requested by His Majesty.”

   “That's true. You are here because the Emperor Stesten has decided to eliminate Recluce, and we are the tools to accomplish this. It is our duty.”

   “You have worked closely with the throne, Marshal, and the Emperor is well aware of your dedication, and your accomplishments in taking over a third of Candar with a relatively small use of resources.”

   “Yes, it was relatively small.” Dyrsse nods to the pitcher. “Delapran wine. I wouldn't know, but it's supposedly not bad. Would you like some?”

   “No, thank you.”

   Dyrsse looks out at the bay, and the rows of ships. “A man of decision, wanting to get on with it.” He smiles. “What do you wish to get on with, Fleet Commander Stupelltry?”

   “I would be less than candid if I were to say that I was pleased to have the bulk of the Emperor's fleet so far from Afrit. I wish to complete the subjugation of Recluce and Candar and return to Hamor.” Stupelltry's voice is level, and his eyes do not flinch as they meet Dyrsse's.

   Dyrsse laughs. “Candar is far indeed from Afrit. I share your desire to subjugate Candar and destroy the power of Recluce. Are you ready to commit all your fleet? It will take no less.”

   “Surely the third of the fleet that has arrived...”

   Dyrsse laughs again. “Take your ships home. Send a courier boat out to tell those en route to return to Hamor.”

   Stupelltry flushes.

   “Forget Candar. Recluce is what has stopped the Emperor. With Recluce's power destroyed, twoscore ships would be enough to capture and hold Candar. Without Recluce's destruction, your fleet will never provide enough support to take Candar.”

   “You presume-”

   “Too much? I presume nothing.” Dyrsse straightens. “It will take all of your ships to destroy the handful of black ships and the city of Nylan.” He shrugs. “Once that is done...”

   “And what clever tactics will accomplish such a difficult feat?” Stupelltry pauses but for a moment before pressing on. “You are so sure of your mandate-”

   Dyrsse ignores the irony placed on the word “difficult” and leans forward. "The Emperor is the liege lord of Afrit, Regent of the Gates of the Ocean, and Emperor of Hamor, the mightiest empire in the history of the world. Yet, for all that mightiness, twice before have we been humbled in Candar and before Recluce. Our traders continue to labor under trade rules forced by Recluce. Over the years, those unseen black warships have sunk traders for trifling violations of the trade laws laid down by one small isle. For whose benefit are those rules enforced? For the black isle, of course.

   “Candar is rife with strife, with chaos wizardry, and with violence. People live in terror of most of the rulers. Compare that to Afrit, where no one fears invasion or war. And who fosters that terror? The black isle, no less.”

   Dyrsse pauses and smiles. “Are you sure you would not like some of the wine?”

   “No, thank you.”

   “As you wish.” The marshal leans forward again. “You asked about clever tactics. Clever tactics won't work. What will work is thousands of iron shells falling on Nylan nearly all at once. It's that simple and that difficult. Can you do that, Fleet Commander Stupelltry? Can you bring your ships to Nylan through the heaviest storms you have ever seen and pound that city into a mass of crushed stone and black gravel?” He pauses. “That is what the Emperor needs. That is our duty, the one laid on me personally by His Mightiness Stesten-to crush Nylan into black gravel.”

   “I am a fleet commander, not a stone crusher.”

   “No... you and I are the Emperor's stone crushers... and we will be crushed if we fail.”