The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  It seemed as though they had ridden through eternity, through a rainstorm that, paradoxically, had relieved the worst of the chaos backflash agony.

  Where exactly they were, he wasn’t sure, except that they were farther south and closer to the forest. He hoped so, anyway, but he was too tired to worry or ride anymore.

  “A lot of this doesn’t make sense, not to me,” he confessed.

  “That’s because you’re not a comm officer or a sociologist,” she pointed out. “It didn’t make sense to me at first, either. Look at it rationally, though, or Rationalistically, if you will.”

  He groaned at the pun, then rubbed his temples.

  “This is a highly regimented and organized culture-and one in which women are held in very low esteem-as valued property. There has to be something like an aristocracy with some pretty high-handed privileges. That whole town screamed it.”

  “Huhh?” Nylan’s head continued to throb. Then, he’d been the one to kill two of the locals.

  “All the houses are shuttered, despite the heat. The entrances are screened with bushes, or, in the towns, barred with grates. There are no signs indicating where anything is, and all the houses look pretty much alike. Have we seen a single girl? Just one pregnant woman. The only horsemen have been armsmen in authority, and everyone runs from anyone who’s mounted, even before seeing who it might be.

  “Why do you think I attacked first? It’s not because I liked the idea, or that I’m bloodthirsty,” she pointed out. “We were mounted, strangers, and bearing arms. That meant we were not only fair game, but that they would have attacked as soon as we refused to come with them. The good news is that no one is actually chasing us right now,” Ayrlyn finished.

  “We’re strangers, and we knocked off three of the local police or the equivalent, and no one’s chasing us? Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’d bet those three armsmen were the entire local constabulary. They got killed. Now, that was outside of town. First, few if any of the locals are going to have the initiative to go see what happened, and those that do aren’t about to say because it would implicate them. That means every local can deny involvement, and most probably will. Plus, in this kind of system, who is going to want to travel to the next town or military district or whatever, to explain what happened-and risk rather direct interrogation? The reaction is bound to be slow.”

  “Systems like that don’t work.”

  “Oh, yes, they do.” She said grimly. “These… Cyadorans have a highly developed sense of passive resistance and absolute military or aristocratic authority over anyone who doesn’t fit. It’s pretty obvious that any woman out in public is free game, but safe behind her house walls. Local men are probably respected by the aristocrats so long as they scrape and bow in public, and the local men stay as far from the aristocrats as possible. Look at the houses. Unless you’re a local, how would you even be sure who lives where? The nonaristocrats aren’t allowed weapons, and I’d bet that even the aristocrats face stiff social restrictions on how and when they can use theirs.

  “Except for stealing from the fields, we can’t and won’t get supplies, because they’re locked up to ensure rigid accounting, and because every store will slam a very heavy door before you can get there. If we did get inside the walls, then the local rules would make us fair game, and these people have a lot of pent-up aggression, I’d bet.

  “Every armed force has the right to kill or torture us,” the redhead continued-“or rape Sylenia and me-or you, if that’s how they’re inclined. The borders are closed, and geographically isolated, which limits strangers, and singles them out.” Ayrlyn yawned. “No, as long as they can keep out large numbers of strangers, the system will work fine. And in some ways, probably better than other societies in Candar.”

  Nylan swallowed in the darkness. What Ayrlyn said made sense, perfect sense-even the precisely edged woodlots. But he had trouble believing it.

  “I know. So do I, but it all fits.”

  “I keep wondering if this is just a fool’s quest.”

  “I have all along.” She chuckled, except it was a low and bitter sound. “But what choice do we have? Could we hold up to another battle?”

  “No.” The brief encounter with the overmatched Cyadoran locals had proved that. As Ayrlyn had pointed out, they might not have been able to survive if they’d let the Cyadorans start the attack. The next time, even if they drew steel and struck first, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to hold up as well as they had the last.

  “Do you want to spend the rest of your life running and sweating your way through Candar, always looking to your back? Or do you want to crawl back to Ryba?”

  Nylan winced.

  “Well… any other ideas?”

  He didn’t have any-not that were any better. At least, if they could find… something… in the forest… some way to stop the Cyadorans… then they might be able to retreat to a hilltop in Lornth.

  “We’ll never be able to retreat anywhere, Nylan,” Ayrlyn broke in. “We might be lucky enough to have a permanent home from which we can sally forth.”

  The grasshopper or cricket chirped again, and the sound reverberated inside Nylan’s ears and skull.

  “Get some sleep. You’re tired. I’ll wake you if I get sleepy.”

  “You’re sleepy, too,” he protested.

  “Not as sleepy as you are.”

  Nylan leaned against her thigh and closed his eyes. Maybe… maybe… he could sleep.

  CXV

  NYLAN GLANCED FROM the back trail they took across the low fields toward where the main road was, roughly paralleling their track, but both roads were empty, although even the smaller trail they followed had heavy recent tracks. He rubbed his forehead, then blotted it. Now that the air was more humid, almost misting, if only slightly cooler, he was sweating even more, and not just from under his floppy hat.

  From behind Sylenia’s saddle came the plaintive plea, “Mah wadah, pease?”

  An exasperated look crossed the nursemaid’s face, and Nylan pursed his lips together as he turned in his own saddle. Weryl couldn’t be that thirsty! Every kay the child asked for more water, and his own senses told him that his son was fine, and that meant he needed attention-or wanted it. Nylan knew he’d been neglecting Weryl some, but not totally, and certainly Sylenia paid more than enough attention.

  “Stop feeling guilty,” snapped Ayrlyn. “You exude guilt, and that’s exactly what he wants. Young children have no sense of ethics or restraint when it comes to getting affection, and your son’s no exception.”

  “Neither am I,” said Nylan.

  “You have some restraint. I restrain you.”

  The engineer grinned. “How far, do you think? I can sense something.”

  “Just something?”

  “Trees are easier for you; the ground is easier for me, and the forces underneath are getting fainter.”

  “Somehow, that makes sense.” Ayrlyn cocked her head to one side, as if listening. “A couple of kays, I’d guess, probably over that low rise ahead.”

  Although they’d been cautious and circled several towns, neither of them had sensed any pursuit. They’d been lucky enough to find a melon field, with a few nearly ripe fruits and a small orchard with something like apples.

  Nylan had suffered a slight stomachache from too many of the apples, but they had almost been worth it after days of hard cheese and harder biscuits. He wished they’d had the presence of mind to search the saddlebags of the Cyadoran armsmen they’d killed, but neither he nor Ayrlyn had been in much shape to think of such.

  He tried not to think of how they would eat on their return-or while they were investigating the forest.

  A slight breeze cooled his face, and faint droplets of water began to fall, not quite rain, but more than mist. He shifted his weight in the saddle again, trying to relieve the soreness. Above the rise was a darkness in the distance, with a greenish cast.

  “Will it rain harder?” asked Sylen
ia.

  “No,” answered Ayrlyn. “It will probably stop in a while.”

  Nylan frowned, looking again at the greenish darkness in the distance, wondering if Ayrlyn was right about the rain.

  The three followed the road up the rise, past the deserted bean fields.

  Ayrlyn reined up. So did Nylan.

  Across the low depression from them, a depression filled with fields, perhaps two kays away, rose a wall of green, shrouded slightly by the misty rain.

  Nylan shivered. Not clouds, but towering trees.

  “The forest… never have I seen such,” marveled Sylenia.

  Nylan’s eyes went to the low expanse before them, and he studied the irregular lines of greenery that spilled across the abandoned fields. Then he tried to extend his feelings, those shadowy perceptions he used when smithing, toward the scene below.

  Like two hammer blows, a line of darkness and a line of whiteness, unseen, only felt, lashed at him, and he swayed in the saddle, grabbing on to the front rim to catch his balance. His eyes watered and flashed, and he gasped, trying to catch his breath.

  “What did you do?” asked Ayrlyn in a low voice.

  Nylan rubbed his forehead. “Just tried… tried to feel what happened down there.” He swallowed, still trying to massage away the throbbing in his skull.

  “It’s been abandoned.”

  “Not for long.” He pointed. “See… those fields were turned, probably last fall.”

  “But trees don’t grow that fast. It would take several years…” Ayrlyn broke off.

  “The enchanted forest,” Nylan reminded her. “Over there, it looks as though someone tried to burn it back.” He rubbed his forehead. “There’s almost a faint overlay of chaos around there.”

  Ayrlyn’s eyes glazed momentarily. “That layer beneath the ground?”

  “Not exactly.” Nylan took a deep breath. “The chaos is on top. The stuff underground is almost gone.” The smith closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. “I’m tired, and we need to think. Let’s stop there.” He pointed toward a house on the upper part of the rise that was not quite a hill. Like all the others, it was brick, with a tile roof. Even through the continuing misting rain, he could sense that, behind the screen of bushes, the door hung open. There was a brick shed just downhill of the house, also empty, with its door ajar. The strain of trying to sense what he could not see intensified his headache, and he massaged his temples again.

  “Are you all right?”

  He nodded and flicked the mare’s reins. Certainly, he was all right. Stuck in the middle of an enemy’s land, at the edge of an order-enchanted forest that didn’t seem exactly friendly, with almost no ability to defend himself, and little food, and a splitting headache and unreliable vision. Trying to protect his son and keep his word to Istril and keep faith with Ayrlyn, not to mention trying to find a way to stop an invasion by the most powerful nation in Candar. Of course, he was fine. Just fine.

  CXVI

  PLICK… PUCK… PUCK…

  Nylan slowly opened his eyes, wondering what the strange sound might be for a moment before he recognized the impact of rain dripping off the tile eaves of the house. Rain… how long had it been since he’d heard rain?

  He sat up on the bedroll. Ayrlyn, Sylenia, and Weryl still slept. They had decided to all sleep in the main room, at least the first night.

  Rather than wake them, he surveyed the house again, trying to learn more about Cyador from the house itself. Although it contained only three rooms, all the floors were glazed tile, with a design of interlocking triangles, and the interior walls were a clean and pale yellow plaster. All furnishings, and any furniture there might have been, were gone, which argued that the inhabitants had not fled willy-nilly, since the floors bore only a relatively thin layer of dust.

  Set in the floor two cubits back from the door, and curving to shield all view of the interior of the house, was a floor-to-ceiling screen of fired ceramic lace, glazed green. A brick stove was built into the west wall of the main room, with not only an oven, but a copper cooking surface bordered by ceramic tile. The oven door was a burnished copper, decorated with intertwined roses hammered out in a raised design.

  Wufff… uffff… Through the half-open shutters came the sound of the horses from the shed barely big enough for them. Nylan had been reluctant to leave them out, not knowing what might come prowling from the forest.

  “How long have you been awake?” asked Ayrlyn sleepily, hushing her voice as she realized that Sylenia and Weryl still slept.

  “Awhile,” he whispered back, reaching over and hugging her.

  “Oooo…” Weryl’s chubby fists pumped the air.

  Sylenia sat bolt upright, then looked around.

  “It’s all right,” Nylan said.

  Ayrlyn eased herself away from Nylan and looked around. “I never would have guessed. It’s so plain outside.”

  “This is just a common house,” Nylan said. “You can tell that by its size.”

  “But… stoves, and…” Ayrlyn frowned, then stretched.

  The smith pulled on his boots and stood, slowly, stiffly. The roof had been welcome, but the floor had been hard, even with his bedroll.

  Nylan did not attempt to explain again, though he suspected his explanation of the night before had not been exactly coherent. “It’s in working order, but we’d need something to cook-which we don’t have at the moment- and some wood.”

  “Wadah? Piscut?” Weryl marched almost stiff-legged toward his father.

  “We still have a biscuit or two, young man, and water.” Nylan swept his son into his arms and hugged him.

  “Wadah?”

  “All right.” Nylan set Weryl down.

  The boy marched to Ayrlyn, offering a hug, and asking, “Wadah, pease?”

  “I’m going.” The smith unbarred the rear door, twice as thick as the front, and with double brackets for bars, although Nylan had only used one on the rear door the night before, since there had only been two bars left in the vacant dwelling-one for each door.

  The well had a long-handled pump. Although the handle itself was a dark polished wood, the links and rods were of the white bronze that seemed the most predominant metal in Cyador.

  After filling the sole bucket, handleless and leaky, which might have been why it had been left, Nylan washed up as best he could, then refilled the bucket with clean water before pumping more water and letting it flow into the trough below the pump. Ayrlyn stumbled out into the cloudy morning, opened the shed and led the horses out for water.

  As he pumped, Nylan glanced to the wall of green to the south and the abandoned fields. The green shoots that had invaded the fields seemed taller. His eyes dropped to the lower damp places in the hard ground of the yard where the water from the night’s rain had collected. There were several specks of green, and cracks in the brown clay-the kind of circular cracks made just before growing plants broke the surface.

  “Nylan?”

  “Huhh?”

  “You’ve pumped enough,” Ayrlyn said, gesturing toward the overflowing trough. “What were you thinking about?”

  Whufff… The chestnut edged Nylan’s mare before dropping her head to drink.

  “The forest. I’d swear it’s grown since last night-not the central part, but all the shoots in the fields.”

  “It probably has, but your son is still asking for water, and my stomach is growling.” The redhead picked up the bucket and held it under the curved greenish bronze spout.

  By the time they were back in the main room, Sylenia had opened the food pack and laid out half a dozen biscuits and the small slab of cheese remaining. Weryl was already half-chewing, half-gumming his biscuit.

  “I could use tea, or something.” Ayrlyn eased herself into a cross-legged position on the tile floor.

  Nylan set down the bucket, then picked it up. “I’ll have to fill water bottles. This leaks too much.” Taking one bottle in his free hand, he walked back out to the pump. After setting th
e bucket on the trough, he filled the water bottle from the pump and walked back inside. He handed the water bottle to Ayrlyn, then sat down, hacked off a chunk of the ever-harder cheese with his knife, and extended it to Sylenia. He cut a smaller chunk for Weryl.

  “Eese… eese!” The cheese went straight into the silver-haired boy’s mouth.

  “He knows what he wants. Like his father.” Ayrlyn grinned momentarily.

  “You know what you want, too, woman.”

  “Of course.”

  Nylan had to wipe off the bottle after Weryl slurped his fill, but then he was getting resigned to the fact that children equaled constant cleanup.

  The biscuit and cheese took the edge off the gnawing in his stomach, but not much more.

  “You must… explore this forest?” asked Sylenia.

  “Some way or another,” Nylan admitted.

  “While you… I could find some food. There are bean plants and some yams, I think. We have a pot. But this… stove…”

  Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan. “You’re the engineer.”

  “I can show you how to use the stove. It’s easier, much easier than a fire. Believe me. It’s a lot harder to burn food. You can if you work at it, but…”

  The redhead stepped toward the rear door. “I’ll take care of the horses.”

  Ayrlyn had groomed and saddled the two mares by the time Nylan had explained everything he could about the stove, checked the chimney and the flue, and thoroughly reassured Sylenia. Belatedly, he remembered to hand her his striker.

  After he mounted the mare, he glanced toward the rear door of the house, where Sylenia stood with Weryl.

  “Best you be careful.” The nursemaid’s eyes dropped.

  “We will.” The silver-haired angel turned the mare, following Ayrlyn, and they rode slowly southward, across a neatly banked and empty irrigation ditch, and into the bean field.

  Nylan glanced down at the bean plants, and the leaves that seemed to be wilting despite the night’s rain, then started to extend his perceptions.