by Dave Dobson
“Yes, but we have already established that you are idiots,” she said, running her fingers through her short hair. “It is lightning, or more properly the energy behind lightning."
“Isn’t lightning destructive? It causes death, and fires.”
“But that is only when it is at its most powerful, most uncontrolled,” she replied. “It is not always so. It arises from order," he replied, “and behaves in an ordered way. If you walk on cloth mats on a cold day, or rub a glass rod with a bit of fur, you store up energy, which then seeks discharge in an object you touch, or into the ground. A well-ordered process. The same happens to clouds. They build up energy and must discharge, either to other clouds or to the ground. The discharge can be chaotic, but the conditions and the flow are ordered and predictable. So, it shares aspects of both order and chaos.”
“You were able to make my rod spark,” I said. “Is that the same energy?”
“It was,” she said. “That was the aspect of chaos within the lightning. Can you not do that? Or do you really just stir stew with it?" She grinned.
“I haven’t shot lightning out of it. It can absorb energy directed at me,” I said. “We call them warding rods, for that. And it can stun or paralyze people if I activate it properly.”
“Absorbing energy is an aspect of order – free energy is dangerous, destructive. Absorbing it, such as the ground does a lightning bolt, restores order. The paralyzing effect is similar. You bring a person in motion, a person acting, to rest, exerting control, producing order. When you stun someone, the rod discharges the same kind of energy as lightning, but controlled, not deadly. This overwhelms the muscles and the mind, bringing your enemy to rest.”
“Where does the rod get this energy?”
“From the person using it,” said Gora. “In each of us, there is the energy of life, and of creativity, and of love –– all of which reflect order. There is also the energy of anger, of passion, of violence – forces which promote chaos. The Arunians, and those who came before, fashioned many objects that harness the power within us, that amplify it.”
“Can anyone use these things?”
“Some are far better suited to them than others. Like art, or carpentry, or music, or writing, or politics, some of it is innate, and some of it is learned. But the devices are rare, and their use often lost to history, so it is not very common that even someone with great potential will have an object and be trained in its use. You are lucky to have the rods. Or stew sticks."
A thought occurred to me. “The pool, here. Is it one of these objects? That focuses power?”
“Ah, you’re not such a wretched flatlander ignoramus after all,” she said. “Of course it is.”
“Is it order, or chaos? What aspect?”
“You tell me,” she said, folding her arms in a rather pompous manner.
I thought some more. “The main thing it does is draw connections, between objects.” That didn’t help me.
“And what does it show?”
“That depends,” I replied. “Usually, it shows times when the objects were together, or events where they were connected somehow."
“So, what is it showing you?”
“Connections, I guess. In the past.”
“Always in the past?”
“No, sometimes in the future,” I said, thinking of the dire prediction about Frosthelm. “And sometimes the connections aren't clear at all.”
“So what does this all have in common?” She looked smug.
“Uh,” I said. “Connections.”
Gora gave me a withering glare, as if I were a stain she’d just discovered on her favorite dress. “Connections when?”
“All different times,” I said.
“And?”
“Connections at different times,” I mumbled, thinking. “Is it, history? Or, time?”
“Yes!” she cried, slapping her knee. “Time. And is that a force for order, or for chaos?”
I sat silently.
“Well?” Gora demanded.
“I’m new at this, all right?” I squinted my eyes. “Time doesn't really create or destroy things. But it flows one way, at one speed, always. And it can’t be reversed or altered.”
“So?”
“So that sounds like a very orderly process,” I guessed.
She nodded. “There are many fundamental laws that govern our world, our universe. All represent order. Time, and its flow, are one such aspect of order.”
This got me thinking. “What about a wand, a device, that could kill someone. Maybe by breaking them down into dust?”
“What do you think?” Her questions were getting annoying.
“Well, that’s got to be destruction, or chaos, right?”
“Of course.”
“And the person who wanted to use this thing, he, or she, would have to summon chaos from inside? Or anger, or wrath, or something?”
“That’s how I’d do it,” she said.
“Is that how you got the rod to make the sparks?”
“Yes. I confess, I’d heard of the rods before, and studied them a bit during my time in Frosthelm, so I knew a little of how they work.”
“Why can’t I do that, then?”
“It’s possible you haven’t tried properly,” she said. "Or, it could be that you are more skilled in summoning order, summoning life from inside yourself. You seem to take to those aspects more. You can use the rod by following aspects of order, and you’re much better with the pool than I am. And you’re a terrible liar. Maybe you just don’t have enough chaos inside yourself.”
I couldn’t tell if she was joking. All of this was new and hard to understand. If Gora was right, it made a lot of the magical devices – the rods, the pool, Brand’s wand ––make more sense. Brand likely had no trouble summoning destructive energy from within himself. I’d seen his anger on display, in magical and non-magical form.
And the collars. They were at the in-between point, along with the rods. They showed order, in that they stunned their wearers into stillness, but perhaps chaos, also, in that they caused pain, and were used with malice. But they kept people under control and in line, which was certainly orderly. I was sure I didn’t understand completely.
“So what makes you so able to summon chaos?” I said.
Gora grew still. “I would rather not discuss that,” she said quietly. “A flaw in my character, perhaps. Or a lifetime of experience." She stood again. “It does not seem to be helping me use the pool, though. I could use some more control, some more order. Shall we try again? Show me one more time.”
I stood back while she placed some objects on the main numbered runes. Today it was kitchen items. A bowl, a spoon, a pot, a knife. The connections should be clear and obvious, the pool easy to direct. As I stood, I felt the lump at my knee, in my trousers where the amulet lay hidden. My mind shot back to the pool back in Frosthelm, and the trouble I’d had finding the northern corner suggested by the Augur. I glanced down at the tiles, and there, at the top corner of the diamond pattern of runes, was the sun and moon, the match of that one so far away in the Guild Hall. It lay along the middle of the pattern, between the sides Gora had marked as order and chaos. I remembered once thinking that the sun and moon might mean Death, because the rune opposite it was one we thought meant Life. I looked at that Life rune now, a curving line ending in radiating spokes, like a flower, or dandelion gone to seed. But that rune must mean something else entirely, because Gora had pointed out Life far over on the side for aspects of order.
“What’s this one?” I asked, pointing at the flower rune.
“Destiny,” Gora said. “A single path leads to many branching ones.”
“And it’s in the middle? Between order and chaos?”
“Your destiny could be good or bad, constructive or destructive.”
“But it always ends in death, right?”
Gora turned to me. “A destiny, a life, is much more than its end, is it not? I would hope you had more ambi
tion, or at least a less depressing view of the world. You are young. There is still time for you to build new wonders, or to destroy your foes.”
I pointed to the rune with the sun and moon, the match to the amulet that I carried, that so many had already died for. “What’s this one, then?”
“Ah, that one is harder to figure. In Arunian texts, they describe its name as ‘fae-rah’, but like your chant, that word has no known meaning in Arunian. Either the meaning has been lost, or it is once again a word of an earlier language, the sound of which is preserved in Arunian script.” She placed a wooden spoon on the fourth rune around the pool. “I read a few books once on these Arunian runes. The best explanation I found for that one was Fusion, or Unity.”
“Unity of what?”
“Of order and chaos, together, I believe. These two forces are opposite. They are frequently in competition, in nature, where things both grow and die, and in humans, who rage and war but also love and nurture. The sun is pure energy – a raging ball of fire –– while the moon is cool and serene, settled in its orbit and regular as a clock. But the sun fosters growth, and the moon disturbs the sea with tides, which are regular in timing but can destroy. I do not think the joining is meant to be literal. They are just symbols, in this case, of order and chaos combined.”
Gora waved a finger, the lecturer once again. “In terms of using magical power, or magical devices, it is the hardest thing to use these forces together. When the aspects of order act upon an aspect of chaos, it resists, often violently. Many times, there are unpredictable results, often explosive and deadly as chaos and destruction break free of their confines. The surest way to ruin, as a wizard, is to try to bind aspects of chaos with aspects of order.”
As she spoke, I thought of Novara. I had sought her out with the help of the pool, and she had surely been slain by a magical explosion or discharge. I could still remember the sun and moon mark scorched into her chest. And her back, and the floor beneath her. She was certainly a powerful user of magic — she had transported herself from the tavern with ease. "What kind of magic would it take to move someone from place to place?”
“You mean, instantly? Or flying, or…”
“Instantly.”
“That would have to be chaos,” she said, not making me guess, for once. “It violates the principles and laws governing time, speed, and distance. You would have to weaken or ignore at least one of the three, and to do so, you would need to harness the power of disorder, of impossibility. You have seen someone do this?”
“Yes,” I replied. I thought about Novara’s death. All kinds of forces were in the mix then – Novara’s teleportation, the pool, the amulet from Stennis – all of it must have combined to destroy Novara through the pool. This must have been what happened to Stennis, too – he had the amulet, and he blew up after Novara cast a spell on it. I remembered the sparks dancing from it, and the screaming noise. Novara must have invoked a combination of order and chaos, centered on the amulet.
“Can order win?” I asked. “If it’s stronger?"
“If strong enough, and applied correctly, it could dominate, and eliminate the effects of chaos. Your warding rods do this, when they absorb magic power. But absorbing power is different from controlling it. When order and chaos aspects meet in conflict, the results are usually terrible and unpredictable.”
“This Unity or Fusion symbol – what does it mean?”
“I don’t know. There wasn’t much written about it in what I read.” By the look in her eyes, I knew she was on to me. “Why all this interest?”
“There’s a group, active in my city. Long ago, and again today. They call themselves the Faerans, and they use this symbol.”
“The same ones who took Nera?”
I didn’t see any harm in answering. “Yes.”
“Why would they kill her? She was nothing to them, unknown to them.”
“They were following a prophecy, or a recipe for a prophecy, or something. My source…” I thought of Madame Lenarre and the afternoon I’d spent with her long ago. "My research indicates that they think of Faera as a being of some sort, and they’re trying to raise it, or birth it, or something. Nera was supposed to be part of the ritual.”
“The prophecy said, ‘Go find Nera, and hang her from a tree, and cut her a lot?’”
“No, there was a ceremony, that required a ritually sacrificed princess of the Golesh tribe. And some other objects – the Eye of Hrogar – that's a gemstone – a mace, a crown. And the Fingernails of the Holy Hermit.”
Gora looked at me, her brow furrowed. “Fingernails?”
“Look, I don’t write the prophecies. Or prophesy them, or whatever.”
“They mean to do this soon?”
“There’s an eclipse coming in a little over two months. It’s supposed to happen then.”
“Most unusual,” said Gora. A dish hung loosely in her grip. The augury was forgotten for the moment. “Most.” She paced around the pool, and I had to circle opposite her to prevent the collar from activating. Finally, she looked at me, calculating. “I’ve never read of the symbol representing a being, but I have not read much about it."
“Where is it you’re doing all this reading?” I tried again.
Gora smiled. “I have been traveling the world since before your parents were born, I wager. I’ve studied in Frosthelm, in Gortis, in Calenda. I even spent ten years wandering in the Serpent Kingdoms, although precious few of the people there care anything about their history, or anything else that might be useful. And the clans have a few libraries. I know we seem like rustics, like barbarians, but we have a scholarly tradition that goes back long years. There are many Arunian ruins in the mountains here, if you know where to look, and we’ve made good use of what we find.”
The Serpent Kingdoms were far across the sea. I’d only seen two people from there in my life, and Frosthelm was a fairly cosmopolitan place. Calenda was likewise so remote, far to the south, that I knew nobody who’d ever been. "So, is this place Arunian?”
“I do not think so. But they likely used it. I think the collars are their design, and I found them here. But I think the pools would have been beyond them. The chant you taught me is not Arunian, and the runes set in the floor, though used by Arunians, were from an earlier time.” She stopped pacing. “But you distract me. Surely your leaders, your Prelate, will not allow these Faerans to complete their ceremony? Especially now that they know about it, and have Nera?”
I sighed. “It’s not that simple,” I said. “Some of our nobles are Faerans, and they have the Prelate’s ear. They’ve taken control of the Inquisitors, of many of our government offices. They got Nera back.”
“Is the Prelate one of the Faerans?”
“I don’t know. I hope not, but it may not matter.” Not with Marron pulling all of the strings.
Gora resumed her pacing. “Were you sent away from Frosthelm? Because you caused trouble? By investigating this?”
‘Sent away’ really failed to describe the process, but I didn’t want to get into it. “More or less.”
Gora was silent for a bit more. “The eclipse – it is a rare one?”
“I gather they are very infrequent over Frosthelm. The scholar I spoke with said the moon would cover the sun.”
“The Unity rune is a combination of aspects of order and chaos, a balance. If the eclipse changes the balance of these aspects, even by a little, the results could be unpredictable. Sunlight is a powerful aspect of growth, of life. If it is blocked…”
“The sun goes down every night, and no gods come springing up out of the ground. You’re speculating here, aren’t you?" I was too new to this idea of order and chaos to follow all of what she said, but I did have extensive experience watching people make things up on the fly.
Gora smiled. “Yes. Perhaps they just use the eclipse so everyone knows when to get together, kill the Painted Ones, and pull fingernails off kindly old hermits. It doesn’t matter, really. The eclipse will ha
ppen whether you want it to or not. What matters is whether the prophecy is true, and if it is, whether they’re able to complete the ritual.”
“Our pool says they can.” I remembered the image of Frosthelm in flames. “It showed me a future where the city was destroyed."
Gora’s face lit up. “Fascinating! Could we see that here?”
“We don’t have the objects I used, and that prophecy nearly destroyed the pool and killed the Augur. So, no, and even if we could, I’d not want to do it again."
Gora pursed her lips. “All right, then. Well, let’s do the augury here, and maybe in a few days, if I ever master this, you can go off and try to get Nera back and save your city.”
Once she’d placed the objects on the numbered runes, I took my place, pricked my finger, and dripped still more blood into the pool. It bubbled readily. As I repeated the chant, by now very familiar to me, I thought over what Gora had said about order and chaos. If the pool was focused on the energy of time, an aspect of order, then perhaps I could reach it better if I created more order, more calm, within myself.
That all sounded very intelligent, but I had no idea what it meant, or how to do it. When I completed the chant, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to center myself, to block out my frustrations, my anger, and my sorrow. Serenity. Or something close. I could feel my heart beat, but it slowed and quieted as I stood over the pool.
In the stillness, a few sensations became more intense. Many of them centered around coolness. I could feel the bottoms of my feet pressed against the cool floor. The collar felt cool on my neck. At first, I thought this was discomfort, but as time progressed, I realized it was just coolness, a cool presence nearby. I could feel coolness wafting up from the pool, too. A breeze? But surely that would come from the opening above.
I should really be doing the augury, I thought. But this was interesting, and I was in no hurry to discover the myriad connections between Gora’s kitchen utensils. As I stood, I could almost feel the pool in front of me. My mind traced its dimensions, and those of the collar. They were both present in my mind, and they were distinctly cool. I could almost feel where they were, the way I knew where my hand or foot was even without looking. This was strange. Perhaps my attempt at meditation had brought about grandiose delusions, but I was pretty sure I could sense these two objects.