The Ages of Chaos

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

“Could you move it?”

  “It’s not so much that I could move it,” Dorilys frowned in fierce concentration as she fumbled for words she had never been taught and did not know existed. “But I can see all the ways it could move. Well, let me show you,” she said.

  Allart, sliding lightly into rapport with her mind, began to sense and see the thick gray high-piled storm clouds as she saw them, everywhere at once. Yet he could trace where the storm was now, where it had been, and at least four ways it might be.

  “But what will be cannot be altered; can it, little cousin? It follows its own laws; does it not? You have nothing to do with it.”

  She said, “There are places I could move it and places I could not, because the conditions are not right for it to go there. It’s like a stream of water,” she said, fumbling. “If I put rocks in it, it would go around the rocks, but it could go either way. But I couldn’t make it jump out of the stream-bed, or run back uphill; do you understand, cousin? I can’t explain,” she said plaintively. “It makes my head ache. Let me show you. See?” She pointed to the enormous anvil-shaped storm mass below. His sensitivity keyed into hers, he suddenly saw with his own gift, the probable track of the storm with others less probable through and over the most likely path; it faded into the nothingness of total unlikeliness and then impossibility at the far outer edges of his perceptions. Then Dorilys’s strange gift was his own gift, expanded, altered, strangely different, but basically the same: to see all the possible futures, the places where the storm might strike, the places where it might not because of its own nature…

  And she could choose between them like himself, to a very limited degree because of the forces outside herself which moved them…

  As I saw my brother on the throne, or dead, within seven years. There was no third choice, that he could choose to remain content as Lord Elhalyn, because of what he is. …

  He felt almost overwhelmed by this sudden insight into the nature of time, and probability, and of his own laran. But Renata was more practical.

  “Can you actually control it, then, Dorilys? Or just tell where it will go?” Allart followed her thought. Was this simply precognition, foreknowledge, or was it like the power of levitation, moving an inanimate object?

  “I can move it anywhere it could go,” she said. “It could go there or there”—she pointed—“but not there because the wind couldn’t change that fast, or that hard. See?” Turning back to Kyril, she asked, “Is it likely to start a fire now?”

  “I hope not,” the man said soberly, “but if the storm should move down toward High Crags there, where the resin-trees grow so thickly, we could have a bad fire.”

  “Then we will not let it strike there,” Dorilys said, laughing. “It won’t hurt anything if the lightning strikes down there, near Dead Man’s Peak, where it is already all burned over; will it?” As she spoke a great blue-white bolt of lightning ripped from cloud to earth, striking Dead Man’s Peak with a searing blaze, leaving a glare of sparks on all their eyes. After a second or two they heard the great crash of the thunder rolling over them.

  Dorilys laughed in delight. “It is better than the fire-toys the forge-folk set off for us at midwinter!” she cried, and again the great flare of lightning arched across the sky, and again, while she laughed excitedly, pleased with the new ability to do what she would with the gift she had borne, not knowing it, all her life. Again and again the great blue-white, green-white bolts ripped and flamed down on Dead Man’s Peak, and Dorilys shrieked with hysterical laughter.

  Kyril stared at her, his eyes wide with awe and dread. “Sorceress,” he whispered. “Storm queen…”

  Then the lightnings died, the thunders rambled and rolled into silence, and Dorilys swayed and leaned against Renata, her eyes dark circled, smudged with fatigue. Again she was a child exhausted, white and worn. Kyril lifted her tenderly and carried her down a short flight of stairs. Renata followed him. He laid her on his own bed.

  “Let the little one sleep,” he said.

  As Renata bent over the child to pull off her shoes, Dorilys smiled up at her wearily and was at once asleep.

  Donal looked at her, questioning, as she came back to them.

  “She is already asleep,” Renata said. “She could not fly like this; she has exhausted herself.”

  “If you wish,” Kyril said diffidently, “you and the little lady can have my bed, vai domna, and tomorrow, when the sun comes out, I can flash a signal for them to bring riding animals for you to return home that way.”

  “Well, we shall see,” Renata said. “Perhaps when she has slept a while, she will have recovered enough to fly back to Aldaran.” She moved behind him to the window, watching as his brow ridged in a worried frown.

  “Look. The lightning has struck there, in that dry canyon,” he pointed. Renata, with all her extended perception, could not see the slightest wisp of smoke, but she did not doubt that he saw it. “There is no sun for me to flash a signal. By the time it comes out again the fire will have taken hold there, but if I could reach anyone—”

  Allart thought, We should have telepaths stationed on these watchtowers, so that they could reach others stationed below at such times. If someone were standing by in the nearest village, armed with a matrix, Kyril or another could signal to have the fire put out.

  But Donal was thinking of the requirements of the moment. He said, “You have the fire-fighting chemicals I brought from Tramontana. I will fly there in my glider and spread the chemicals where the lightning struck. That will damp the fire before it really starts.”

  The old ranger looked at him, troubled. “Lord Aldaran would be ill pleased if I let his foster-son run such a danger!”

  “It is no longer a question of letting me, old friend. I am a grown man, and my foster-father’s steward, and responsible for the well-being of all these people. They shall not be ravaged by fire if I can prevent it.” Donal turned, breaking into a run, down the stairs and through the room where Dorilys still lay in her stunned sleep. Kyril and Renata hurried after him. He was already buckling himself into his flying-harness.

  “Give me the chemicals, Kyril.”

  Reluctantly the ranger handed over the sealed water-cylinder, the packet of chemicals. When mixed together, they would expand into a foam that could cover and smother an extraordinary expanse of flames.

  As he moved toward the open space, before he could break into the run of takeoff, she stopped him.

  “Donal, let me go, too!” Would they really let him fly alone into such danger?

  “No,” he said gently. “You are too new to flying, Renata. And there is some danger.”

  She said aloud, and knew her voice was shaking, “I am not a court lady, to be sheltered against all dangers. I am a trained Tower worker, and I am used to sharing all the dangers I see!”

  He reached out, took her shoulders gently between his hands. “I know,” he said softly, “but you have not the experience of flying; I should be hindered by having to stop and make certain you knew precisely what to do, and there is need for haste. Let me go, cousin.” His hands on her shoulders tightened and he pulled her into a quick, impulsive embrace.

  “There is not as much danger as you think, not for me. Wait for me, carya.” He kissed her, swiftly.

  She stood, still feeling the touch of his lips, watching him run toward the edge of the cliff, wings tilted to catch the wind. Donal soared off, and she stood shading her eyes against the glare, watching the glider shrink to hawk-size, sparrow-size, a pinpoint dipping behind the clouds. When it was gone she blinked hard, turned, and made her way inside the fire station.

  Allart was standing at the windows, watching intently. He said as she joined him, “Since Dorilys showed me what she sees, I am somehow a little more able to control my foresight. It is a matter of shifting the perceptions for all times and seeing which is most real…”

  “I am so glad, cousin,” she said, and meant it, knowing how painfully Allart had struggled with this curse of
laran. But in spite of her very real concern for Allart, who was her kinsman, her lover, her friend, she discovered that she had no time to think of Allart now. All of her emotional tension was stretched outward, focused on that small distant fleck which was Donal’s glider, hovering high above the valley, dipping slowly, slowly down, skirting the edge of the storm-pattern. And suddenly, all her emotion, all the empathic laran of a Tower-trained monitor, surged into awareness, identity, and she was Donal. She was…

  … flying high above the valley, sensing the taut energy-net currents strung across the sky as if they were banners flying from the heights of the castle, snapped in the wind, trailing forces. He spread his fingertips to drain off the tingle of the electricity, hovering, soaring, all his attention focused on the spot on the forest floor that Kyril had pointed out to him.

  A thin wisp of smoke, curling, half concealed by leaves and the long gray-green needles of evergreens, lying fallen and crisped by frost and sun on the ground… It could smolder there unseen for days before blazing into a fire that could ravage all of the valley… It had been well that he came. This was all too near the estate of High Crags which his foster-father had given him.

  I am a poor man. I have nothing to offer Renata even if such a lady would be my wife… nothing but this poor estate, here in fire-country and ravaged again and again by fire. I had thought I could marry, establish a household. Yet now it seems to me all too little to offer my dear lady. Why do I think she would have me?

  (Standing frozen, intent at the wide windows, Renata shivered, not really there at all. Allart, turning to speak, saw it and let her be.)

  Again, Renata’s awareness merged with his, Donal dropped down and down, hanging from the struts of the glider. He circled the small trailing wisp of smoke, studying it, unaware of how the storm above him moved and drifted and rumbled. The glider was dropping swiftly now, the wide wings slowing his fall just enough so that he could land on his feet, fall forward, braking his fall with his outstretched hands. He did not bother to unfasten the glider harness as he pulled the sealed water-cylinder from its place under the strut. After tearing it open with his teeth he tucked it under his arm while he ripped open the small packet of chemicals; then he dropped the chemicals into the water, held the pliable cylinder over the wisp of smoke, and watched as the green foam bubbled and surged out, foaming up and up endlessly, aiming and spilling around the forest floor, soaking quickly into the ground. The smoke was gone; only the last remnants of the oozing foam remained. Like all fire-fighters, Donal was astonished anew at how quickly a fire, once controlled at its source, could subside as if it had never been.

  The most fickle of the elements, easiest to call, most difficult to control… The words came from nowhere in his mind and were as swiftly gone again. He folded the limp bag which had once been the water-cylinder, its impermeable material still smelling faintly of chemical slime, and tucked it under one of the ropes of the glider harness.

  This was so simple; why did Renata fear for me? Looking into the sky, he knew. The clouds had gathered again around him, and it was certainly no weather for flying. There was no rain here, the air still heavy and sullen, oppressive and thick; but above him on the slopes of Dead Man’s Peak, the storm raged, heavy rain and black clouds laced intermittently by flares of lightning arching from cloud to the waiting ground. He was not really afraid, for he had been flying since he was a small boy. Frowning, he stood for a moment studying sky and air currents, the pattern of the storm, the winds, trying to calculate his best chances of return to the fire station with the least danger or difficulty.

  At least the storm on Dead Man’s Peak has drowned the last vestiges of the fire.

  Scanning the sky, Donal whipped off the glider harness and tucked the contraption, wings folded, under his arm. Walking very far with the wings trailing offered too much drag, and there was also the danger of catching and snagging them on something. He climbed a small, steep hillside from where he knew he could catch a wind, strapped himself into the glider harness again, and tried to take off. But the winds were swirling, capricious. Twice he made a short run, tried to catch enough wind in his wings to take off, but each time the wind shifted around and spilled him, once with a painful tumble to the ground.

  Picking himself up, bruised, Donal swore. Was Dorilys playing again with winds and air currents, shifting wind and magnetic fields without knowing he was down there? No, surely, Renata and Allart would keep her from trying any such tricks. But if she were still sleeping, still enormously nerved up from the excitement of the day, her first flight, the effort of controlling her gift? Did her dreaming mind shift winds and air at will, then?

  Without enthusiasm he contemplated the distant peak where the fire station stood. Was he going to have to climb up there on foot? He could hardly do that before dark. The road was good enough, for supplies had to be brought up to the fire station every tenday; he had heard this road had been matrix-surfaced, in the time of Dom Mikhail’s grandfather. But, still, he did not want to climb it. The best that could be said for it was that it was less trouble than scrambling up a rocky hillside. Yet if he could not catch a wind steady enough to lift him, with the aid of his matrix crystal, he must trudge up that road, carrying the glider under his arm!

  He looked again at the sky, heightening his sensitivity to wind and air. The only wind steady enough to bear him up was blowing steadily toward the storm over Dead Man’s Peak. Yet if he could ride up on this wind, catching a crosscurrent somewhere that would carry him back toward the fire station… there was some risk to it, yes. If the wind was too brisk, he would be carried along into the storm raging there.

  Yet if he took the time to climb all that way, it would be dark and dangerous. He must risk the wind blowing toward the peak. He took a little extra time to make certain his straps were snug and secure, inspected the struts and their fastenings, and finally discarded the plastic fabric of the water-container. It could be reclaimed some other time, and even a little extra weight might make the difference in what was going to be a fairly tricky flying maneuver. Then he ran toward the edge of the hill, focusing on his matrix, letting the wind and the force of levitation bear him upward; felt, with relief, the wind catch in the broad edge-planes of his glider and carry him up and outward, along on the rising current of the solid draft.

  He rose, soaring high, racing along on the wind with such force that every strut and rope of the glider shuddered and he could hear a high singing note above the roar of wind past his ears. He felt a curious, cold, exhilarating fear, his senses strained to their limit, taken up with the delight of soaring on the wind. If I fall I could be smashed—but I will not fall! Like a hawk in its native element he circled, looking down at the valley below, the ragged rents in the clouds over the fire station, the thickly piled storm clouds, sullen with lightning, over Dead Man’s Peak. Circling again, he caught a crossdraft which would take him in the general direction of the fire station; he tilted his wings into it, a bird in his element, every sense given into the ecstasy of the flight. He was not aware of Renata’s mind linked with his, but he found himself thinking, I wish Renata could see this as I see it. Somehow in his mind he linked the ecstasy of that soaring long glide, the rush of wind past the struts, with the moment, all too brief, when he had held her and felt her mouth on his own…

  Lightning crackled ominously, the metal clips at the end of the struts gleamed, suddenly, with bluish light, and Donal, tingling with undischarged electricity, realized that the storm had begun to move, swiftly on the wind, down the valley toward the fire station. He could not even descend; carrying this much electrical charge, he could not touch ground or he would be killed. He must circle until the charge was drained away. Through the sudden thunder, he realized that he was very much afraid. The storm was moving the wrong way. It should have drifted out past Dead Man’s Peak and now it was turning back. Suddenly he remembered the day of Dorilys’s birth, the day of his mother’s death. The storm had been wrong then, too! Doril
ys, asleep, dreaming dreams of terror and power, reaching out to tap the forces of the storm. But why would she focus them on him, even in sleep?

  Does she know that she is no longer the only female creature in my thoughts and in my heart? He fought to keep his place in the air, despite the stubborn downdraft that sought to carry him downward to the open space behind the fire station. He knew he must circle once more. Again the crackle of thunder in the air deafened him, and gusts and spurts of cold rain chilled him. Once again he felt the lightning moving around him, and with every last atom of his laran he reached out, twisted something, thrust it elsewhere…

  It was gone. Thunder crackled through his body and he fell like a stone, with his last strength catching a current which could bring him in at the very edge of the open space behind the fire station. Or would he miss it, go tumbling down the side of the mountain to wind up, smashed, far below? Half-unconscious, he saw someone running below him, running toward where he would land. He fell heavily, staggering. His feet touched ground, and Renata caught him in her arms and held him, drenched and senseless against her for a moment before his weight overwhelmed her and they fell, together.

  Wrung, exhausted, Renata held the unconscious Donal against her breast. His face was cold with rain and for a terrified moment she did not know if he were alive, then she felt the warmth of his breath against her, and her own world started to move again.

  Now do I know what it is to love. To see nothing ahead except the one … to know, now, kneeling here as he lies stricken in my arms, that if he had been killed, in a very real sense I would have died here, too… Her fingers fumbled on the straps, loosening the miraculously undamaged glider. But his eyes opened; he pulled her down to him and their lips met, in a sudden, profound quiet. They neither saw nor heeded Allart and Kyril watching them. Once and for all, now and forever, they knew they belonged to one another. Whatever happened afterward would simply be confirmation of what they already knew.