Wellspring of Chaos (42 page)

Hagen’s eyes widened. “You don’t owe me that. You don’t owe—”

“No. This is another kind of debt. I will go, one way or another. I would like your leave.”

“You may have it. You know that if Lord Ilteron’s forces come to the harbor, we will depart?”

“I know.” Even as he said the words, Kharl had to wonder if he were being a fool, searching for an act of meaning because no matter how hard he had tried, he had been unable to find one, not one that turned out well, at least.

“There is one thing that may help you,” Hagen said quickly. “None have fought well or recently in Austra. Ilteron’s armsmen and lancers will not act quickly. If you act decisively, events will favor you.”

Kharl nodded. He had already seen that, and he was not even an armsman.

Hagen gestured, and one of the lancers, perhaps a Serjeant, rode over and reined up. “The mage needs to get as close to the ridge as you can take him.”

The serjeant looked at Kharl skeptically.

Kharl ignored the skepticism. “The closer I can get, the more I may be able to do to help Lord Ghrant.”

“We’ll get you closer than you’d like,” came the grim reply. “You want to ride all the way?”

“The last part, if it’s not too far… on foot, I think.”

“You could use bushes for cover going up the ridge. You all right with that?”

“That would be better. So long as it’s not too far.”

“Thought as much. Ilteron’s lancers can’t ride you down in the bushes.” There was a pause. “What are you going to do?”

“What I can.” That was the only truthful answer Kharl had.

“Best we go.” The serjeant motioned, and another rider joined them, grim-faced, and without saying a word.

The two lancers flanked Kharl as the three rode eastward past the front of the keep and turned northward down a narrow gravel path that slowly curved back eastward around the base of the ridge. Less than half a kay onward, still near the base of a long slope, the serjeant reined up. To Kharl’s right was a mass of bushes, yet with an edge as clean as if laid out with a rule.

“This part of the ridge is mostly berry bushes. Been there since before there was a town, my grandsire said. Can’t ride a horse through it, but it’d be slow going unless you stay on the edges.”

“I’ll stay beside them.” Kharl dismounted and handed the reins to the serjeant. “I won’t be needing the horse.”

“Good luck, ser.”

From the lancer’s tone, Kharl could tell that the man thought him a dead man—or mad, or perhaps both.

“Thank you.” Kharl took the staff and started uphill. He did not look back as the two lancers rode off.

From the feeling of lessened chaos emanating from the top of the ridge, Kharl could sense that the battle was winding down. He could only hope that he was not too late, that something could be salvaged. And from what he had observed of white wizards, he had to see if he couldn’t at least stop them, and Ilteron, even if they had already slain the less-than-wise Lord Ghrant.

Kharl moved uphill more swiftly, staying beside the bushes, but not using his light shield, not yet, and not wanting to until he had to.

Within moments, he could see figures ahead—lancers in green and black and in yellow and black riding downhill, avoiding the berry bushes. Behind them came armsmen on foot. Some were pursued by lancers in blue and gray, and others stumbled, as if they had trouble walking or seeing. Some were splattered with blood, but most were not.

The carpenter tried to sense the chaos ahead, but there were two pillars of unseen white, one not all that far away, but uphill and to his right, out among the more open grassy stretches where there were but few trees. The other—and stronger focus—was close to the top of the ridge, if not at the very top.

Kharl drew back into the bushes as mounts thundered down in his direction.

“Someone’s in the bushes! Could be an archer!”

Kharl dropped to his knees and willed the light to flow around him as the rebel lancers neared.

“Gone now… swore he was right there…”

A laugh followed. “They’re all running, like scared coneys.”

“… won’t matter… not in the end…”

“… make sure we get to the end…”

Kharl barely waited until the lancers were past before he dropped the light shield and scrambled uphill. The rush of men fleeing and those pursuing seemed to dissipate, and he began to hurry across the hill.

Less than ten rods away, he could see a band of armsmen in yellow and black, using a stone pavilion as a makeshift redoubt and shield against a white wizard and a company of rebel lancers. There were bodies in blue and gray strewn before the amber stone structure, as well as many in yellow and black; but this group of armsmen loyal to Lord Ghrant had neither broken nor run, and the attackers had pulled back.

Kharl could see that no one was even looking in his direction as he crossed the slope.

Hsssstt! A reddish white firebolt arced from the wizard and flew between two stone pillars. Flame flared, and one of the defenders staggered forward, screaming, his entire body a mass of fire.

Kharl gathered the light shield around himself, forcing himself to keep moving, not to think, but to get closer to the wizard. Even from within the darkness of his light shield, he could easily sense the white energy of the wizard as yet one more firebolt flared into the stone pavilion. Another set of screams echoed across the morning.

Kharl winced but kept walking, until he was less than a rod behind the rear of the rebels.

“… turn ‘em to torches!”

“… southern weaklings…”

Kharl was still a good fifty cubits from the swirling of chaos and whiteness. He could only hope that his idea would work. It should… but one never knew.

He took a slow and deep breath, then visualized the air around the wizard, then reached out and twisted all the order-and-chaos hooks, so that the air touching the wizard’s body turned solid.

There was not even a sound, except the wizard pitched forward, frozen as though he had been turned into stone.

“What happened!”

“Must be another mage!”

“Where?”

Despite the other’s immobility, Kharl could sense the gathering bolt of chaos, and he forced himself to wait until the last moment—even as the reddish white fireball was flaring toward him—before hardening a shield of air between him and the chaos-bolt.

Still, heat and fire flamed past him, so close and so hot he could feel the ends of his hair and beard crisp and smell the burning hair.

The second fireball was weaker. That was good, because Kharl doubted he could hold the shields for too long.

He could sense the chaos folding in upon itself, and he let go of the shield before him, but not the one imprisoning the white wizard.

The entrapped wizard continued to struggle, but the last firebolt was but a tiny eruption of flame. Then, there was a reddish emptiness, and Kharl could feel the absoluteness of death, releasing the confinement that had destroyed the wizard.

The carpenter turned back uphill and moved back across the hillside, still light-shielded.

Once he was a good ten rods away from the forces battling over the pavilion and again moving uphill beside the bushes, he released the light shield, blinking as light flooded his sight. For several moments, he had trouble seeing and was glad that the grassy slope offered relatively even footing.

Behind him, he could hear the clash of metal and the grunting of armsmen as the rebels and the loyalists renewed the conflict over the pavilion. He would have to leave that battle to the armsmen, at least for the moment, because he needed to find the second chaos-wizard.

The bushes ended, suddenly. Before Kharl the grassy slope leveled out. Ahead, a low white marble wall, less than two cubits high, and less than five rods away, encircled another larger stone pavilion. Behind or within the wall was the pillar of white chaos—and a far larger gathering of armed men, many of whom were looking downhill.

“Someone’s coming!”

Kharl quickly donned his light shield.

“He’s gone!”

“… vanished…”

“… just turned and ran, that’s all…”

“… don’t know… might have wizards, too…”

“… woulda seen ‘em earlier…”

Kharl began to angle to his right, to where he could sense that there were fewer armed men, and slightly away from the chaos-focus. But he kept moving uphill and toward the remaining white wizard—and, he hoped, Ilteron and perhaps even Lord Ghrant.

“There’s an order-mage coming… look for where things seem blurry!” called out a voice.

Kharl tried not to hurry, to keep his steps and pace even, as he used his senses to make his sightless way toward the stone structure that rose in the center of the paved area enclosed by the wall and crowned the southern end of the ridge.

“Go find him! The mage! He’s got to be close.”

“You find him…”

“How?”

For their confusion, Kharl was most grateful. He tried to keep his breathing even and as quiet as possible as he neared the stone wall and the men who stood behind it. He could sense an opening farther to his left, and he eased in that direction.

The white wizard who stood less than ten rods away was the stronger of the two with Ilteron. That Kharl could feel. But… did he need to attack the other wizard? What he really needed was to destroy Ilteron. His only problem was that he didn’t know which of the armed men happened to be the rebel lord, and there were close to a hundred figures on the ridgetop.

Then… if Ghrant were dead, and Kharl killed Ilteron, and not the white wizard, the rebel lords would be able to continue the war. So Kharl had to deal with the white wizard—if he could.

“I know you are here, cowardly black.” The voice boomed across the ridge, and Kharl could sense the chaos that amplified it. “Lyras,

skulking in the back hills once more will get you nothing.“

Kharl said nothing, moving along the stone wall, until he sensed a gap in the armsmen, one a good three cubits wide. He stepped up on the stone wall—and felt the reason for the gap—a fountain or pool behind it.

While he disliked using his tricks even to get to the white wizard, he hardened the water and carefully made his way to the far side of the pool, where he released the order-ties. Then he stood in his darkness, trying to gather himself together.

The stone pavilion was but another fifteen cubits before him, and he could sense both the white wizard and two other figures within the stone-roofed and columned structure before him.

“You have learned, Lyras… but you have not learned enough.”

Kharl thought. The white wizard could sense his presence in general terms, but not with any great accuracy, or fireballs likely would have been sent his way. Kharl eased forward, trying to figure out which man was which of those under the dome. There were three, and one lay on the stone floor, still alive, but dazed. That had to be Ghrant. But which of the other two was which?

“You said… there were no black mages in Austra.”

The surprisingly high voice came from the taller figure—Ilteron.

“It matters not. Black cannot stand against white, not in war.”

Could Kharl just harden the air around Ilteron’s face and head? If he made it tight enough, it ought to suffocate the lord, and it wouldn’t take as much strength.

Remembering Hagen’s words about speed, he twisted the order-and-chaos hooks together.

Ilteron staggered, his hands clawing at his face.

Kharl needed more strength. He could feel that the staff he held had strength, order, within it. Abruptly, the words of The Basis of Order made sense, and he wondered why he had not understood before. He… he had been the one to put that order there, as a tool. Perhaps Jenevra had as well, but the order in the staff was limited to what a staff could do.

He concentrated… not so much on breaking the staff, or even casting it aside, as reuniting the order that was his in the staff with that within himself.

A flow of darkness surged through him.

Crack… Without even his willing it, the staff had broken, and the iron bands that had bound it were no longer black iron, but gray.

The lower fragment hit the stones by his feet with a dull thunk, and without thinking Kharl dropped the useless other half.

“There!” Hssst!

A massive firebolt flared toward Kharl before he could try to harden the air around the wizard. Still trying to hold the hardened air tight around the dying Ilteron, Kharl flung up weaker, barely hardened air shields.

The firebolt flared around and past him, again burning his skin. But the worst of the fire flared into the rebel armsmen, and more than a half score flamed like torches. Kharl smiled coldly and stepped to the side, releasing the air shields.

“You missed!” he exclaimed.

Hssst! Another firebolt slammed toward Kharl, and again he raised the deflecting shields.

More rebel armsmen flamed and died.

Kharl darted farther to his right. “You don’t aim very well!”

With the third splash of flame, there was a cry, “Back! They’ll flame us all!”

Kharl moved again. “Over here!”

Hssst! While the firebolt followed his voice, none of the armsmen were about to get close enough to attack, not when the odds were that they’d get burned to cinders.

Kharl could feel his breathing getting labored and his knees becoming weak.

Hssst!

Behind and around him, the armsmen backed away and began to run, slowly at first, then more quickly.

Kharl eased sideways and forward. Weak as he felt, he had to harden the air around the white wizard—and quickly.

“Your invisibility won’t save you. You can’t hide forever.”

The carpenter reached out and hardened the air around the wizard, but just around his head and neck.

Hssst! The firebolt flared directly at Kharl, perhaps because the wizard could follow the order-link.

Kharl threw up his hardened air shields, then sat down. His legs were rubbery.

Hssst! Another firebolt flared around him, the heat even greater.

Then a third and a fourth bolt followed, and Kharl huddled behind his shields.

The fifth bolt was weaker, and the sixth died before reaching Kharl.