Shervan looked back behind us. No one was there. I had already checked. Although we had overtaken a small wagon loaded with covered baskets and had passed a post-rider headed back in the direction of Tellura, the road was lightly used. “1 see no one. Do you think we will see one of the Finest?” asked Shervan.
“Here? So far from the hills?”
“But the wizard should see some of the Finest.”
Suspecting I had seen a few of the Finest as captives in Fenard, I let the two talk as the horses carried us down the road and further into Kyphros.
Meltosia was nearly a repeat of Tellura, except that, instead of just five or six buildings, it had nearly a dozen, one of which was a long house that took in travelers. Mama Parlaan’s house could not have been called an inn, not even in comparison to the Snug Inn in Howlett. But the rooms were cool and the pallets on the hard wooden bedframes clean. The evening meal was another spicy casserole-goat, I gathered, but I didn’t ask.
Breakfast was hard rolls not much after dawn, and Shervan woke as talkative as he went to sleep.
“A wonderful morning to be alive. Look at the pink above the hills, and the dew like pearls upon the yucca. A good day for a long ride, and it will be a long ride to Kyphrien, but a sunny one. Don’t you think so, Pendril?” Pendril earned my gratitude by grunting. The midday meal was in a barracks of road soldiers in a place whose name I never learned, distinguished mainly by the fact that the small post controlled the bridge over the first river I had seen in Kyphros-a snaking tongue of water no more than fifteen cubits wide and less than a cubit deep.
“But when the spring floods come, then the waters sweep everything before them and the land is underwater for kay upon kay.”
I hadn’t asked, but Shervan answered the questions I might have posed, and all too many even I wouldn’t have considered.
That was how we reached Kyphros.
LX
“THIS is AS far as we go,” Shervan had told me as he and Pendril escorted me to the low walls around the guard complex.
“Why?”
“Our job is just to get you here. We’re outliers, and we’re not allowed within the walls. That is, unless we are mustered in for training or for special duties, and that does happen.” He shrugged, almost dropping his reins, “As for us, we keep the waystation for stray wizards and let Barrabra tell us what to do. What else can we do?” He smiled apologetically.
I smiled at his expressive face. Since I knew but half the story, I couldn’t say whether the restriction made all that much sense, but who was I to quibble? “So what am I supposed to do?”
“You stable your pony in the main stables. You just ride right through the gates on the left. Then you go to the building with the green flag and ask to see the sub-commander. They will mumble and mutter, but you just tell them everything and insist on your right to see the sub-commander. Just insist on it. I’m sure you’ll find some way to convince them.”
Both men laughed at that.
Their confidence was touching, if misplaced. And I couldn’t deny that it had been a relief to ride the last day without having to weave shields or worry about being denounced as a wizard or keep hiding from everyone.
So I rode up to the gate, where the guard looked me over, then back at the pair of outlier soldiers. “What did you drop on me?”
“Orders! He’s supposed to see the sub-commander.” Shervan didn’t exactly keep a straight face. Pendril looked in the other direction.
“One of those?” The gate guard shook his head, then looked at me. “The stable is on the left. Once you get your… horse… settled, go straight across the yard to the main building. Don’t go anywhere else, or someone’s like to draw before they ask questions.”
The stable was right where it was supposed to be, a solid red brick with a slate roof and a slight but not overpowering odor of horse manure.
“Official business?” asked the ostler, practically running me down even before I had both feet on the ground.
I nodded.
“Sign here.” He handed me a flat square of parchment and pointed to a line under the words “stable permit.” He stepped back. “If you can’t sign, use your mark. Get an officer or a serjeant to chop this. Otherwise it’s a copper a day. If you lose the permit, it’s two coppers a day.” He looked at me and at Gairloch. “Mountain pony?”
“Yes.”
“If you want to stable him, you can have the last stall on the right.”
Since it wasn’t really a request, I led Gairloch to the last stall and unsaddled him. I did shield the saddlebags, just as a matter of habit. But I brought my staff with me.
The ostler looked at it with respect. “Seeing the sub-commander?”
“That’s what I understand.”
“Good luck! Tough lady. Go to the red archway, over there, under the green flag.”
With that I walked less than a hundred cubits, where I found another guard, standing beside the doors under the red-painted archway. Then I looked at the young redheaded guard. “1 need you to take a message to the sub-commander.”
“The Sub-Commander of the Guard-a message from a… what are you?”
“A woodworker, among other things.” And I was, more of a woodworker than an order-master, when you got right down to it.
“A message from a woodworker?” The youth in the worked leather-and-brass vest shook his head in disbelief. “She wouldn’t even bother to look at you, fellow.”
The wooden beam framing the open door, the beam against which, he leaned, scarcely looked able to support him, let alone the archway, what with the cracks and the age of the dusty structure. At the moment, I was tempted to dip into chaos and age him and the structure further, but… trusting in Justen and the book, I only sighed. “A wager, perhaps?”
“Ha! What would you have to wager, except your hide?”
“Say a couple of silvers that you can’t touch me with that fancy sword-my old staff against your new sword.”
I placed my hand on the staff.
He didn’t even seem to notice its appearance, so surprised was he with my suggestion. “That’s dangerous, fellow. I might take you up on it. It’s a crime to strike a member of the autarch’s guard.”
“Is it a crime to strike your weapon?”
“No.” He looked puzzled.
“Well, that might make it harder. Say a gold and you carry my message to the sub-commander.”
“And when I win?”
“You have at least some of my blood and a gold penny.”
“How do I know you’re honest?”
I sighed. “Because the penalty for being dishonest would likely be my head.”
“You don’t sound like a woodworker…”
The youngster was sharp, almost brilliant.
“I never said that’s all I was.”
His small eyes looked me over, and I could see the scheming beginning.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you. The sub-commander already knows where I’m from, and there’s not one of you that could best her blade.” The words didn’t come out quite right, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“How would you know?”
I managed to keep my face impassive. Sometimes, I actually can.
Then he swallowed. It took him a moment, but, like I said, the young man was almost brilliant, at least for a Candarian. “You put your staff against her blade?”
“That was some time ago. Doubtless she has improved.”
Improved or not, he suddenly realized how close he had come to disaster.
“I could just take your name… and leave the decision to her…”
I inclined my head to him. “That might be best. My name is Lerris.” Of course, that was all that I had ever wanted, but nothing anywhere was straightforward, and for whatever reason, I really hadn’t wanted to demand to see Krystal. Call it stiff-necked pride… whatever. I still had some.
Still shaking his head, the redheaded young trooper yelled into the barracks. “Bide
k! Get on up here.”
As soon as another young buck, this one heavier, sloppier, and darker, as well as more disapproving, appeared, the nameless young guard marched across the open courtyard-one of the few in Candar that was actually paved with level and solid stones-and disappeared into a granite three-storied building.
While I waited, I made a few more mental measurements of the area around the doorway, mainly to test the age of the wood, since I had an idea for my defense that would not violate the rules of order, since it was strictly creative.
Using it wasn’t necessary, since three guards marched from the wing of the structure into which the young guard had disappeared. He followed behind them a moment later. All four stopped short of me.
The center guard, wearing clean green leather and a blade that radiated effectiveness, looked at the staff and nodded.
“The sub-commander bids you welcome, order-master. Would you be so kind… you are most welcome…”
He definitely wasn’t used to inviting guests into the guard’s domain. I smiled pleasantly. “I appreciate your courtesy and would hope you would be so kind as to lead the way.”
“… order-master… oh, shit…” Both the nameless young guard and Bidek looked as white as the face of chaos as I saluted them with the staff and followed the three troopers into the granite building and up three wide flights of stairs. The door was bound in solid iron, and the knocker would have waked the dead.
The dark-haired lady opened it herself, and her eyes did not even flicker as she silently stepped back and let us enter. Krystal’s quarters were almost lavish for a professional soldier’s base, with two large rooms, a conference room with a large rectangular table and heavy wooden armchairs which opened into a covered and railed third floor balcony, and a bedroom/study, although I only glimpsed her more personal quarters as I stood in the conference room.
A large and sturdy oak beam stood behind the door from the main hallway to her quarters.
“The order-master, commander.”
“Thank you, Statcha. You may leave us.” Krystal wore green leather trousers, tighter than in Recluce, with a short jacket over a green leather tunic. The jacket was ornamental, not designed for battle, and bore gold braid across the left shoulder and matching four-pointed silver stars on the narrow lapels.
I could feel Statcha’s eyebrows rising.
Krystal laughed, although she had not yet even turned her eyes to me, and her laugh was more musical and more relaxed than I had heard it. “You know I have nothing physical to fear from one man. And an army could not save me from a chaos-master or an order-master put against me.”
All three men backed away, as if they had been lashed, yet her words had been gentle. As she talked, I let my feelings reach out to her blade-surprisingly, that same blade I had bought for her on a day that seemed almost part of another life-and found… that the unordered steel had assumed a rough order. As had Krystal. I shied away from reading her feelings, knowing I was afraid to find out how she felt.
Clunk.
“Lerris.” Those black eyes turned on me, damping the fire of instinctive command that I had suspected, but never seen. “You look older, wiser.”
“1 doubt that I’m much of either.”
She smiled. “That alone says you’re both. It’s good to see you, although I didn’t doubt I would sometime.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“You don’t belong in Recluce, and sooner or later…” She shrugged, then looked squarely at me. “Why did you come?”
“I needed to find out about the autarch.”
“Then why did you ask for me?”
I admired the directness. She was still gentle, but the gentleness had been reinforced with steel.
“Because…” I took a deep breath, then shook my head. “I don’t know. It seemed the right thing to do, and I’m glad I did it. But I can’t tell you why.” My pulse seemed to race, as though I were somehow lying to myself, and that bothered me.
“You don’t like not being able to answer my question.”
I grinned, sort of. “You’re right. I don’t.”
Her eyes brushed past me, then centered back on my face. “Stories about you are circulating all across Candar-except no one knows who you are. When I heard about the black-staffer who dared the deadlands, it had to be you. When I heard about the gray wizard’s apprentice who healed a slut in Jellico and disappeared in plain view…”
My stomach twisted a little. If Krystal knew…
“Were you the one who destroyed the white wizard near the Vale of Krecia?”
“That was an accident,” I admitted.
The sub-commander shook her head. “Still the same combination of confidence and modesty.”
“Modest?” She ignored my protest, looking at the doorway, then back at the desk in the bedroom/study. “Will you stay?”
“No. Not for long, not if I’m to help you before it’s too late. To undo what I may have done.” At that moment, I wanted to stay, to watch her smile and hear the musical tone of her voice, but the order within me refused to lie to her or to me. “I’m not yet the order-master you called me, and I may never be. I haven’t finished what I must.”
She shook her head, and I realized that the long black hair was gone, that her hair, rather than being bound up with silver or gold cords, was scarcely longer than mine. “I would like you to stay for dinner.”
The words were not a request, simply a direct preference, but Krystal no longer had to ask for anything.
I thought. Leaving tonight wouldn’t solve anything, and Antonin did not know who or where I was-yet. Certainly he would within days, but I had to sleep somewhere, and a good night’s sleep with the autarch’s guards, even in a dusty barracks, would beat another night holed up in a canyon or a thicket. “Yes.”
“Let’s sit on the balcony for a moment. I need to be at a meeting with the autarch before too long. After that, we can really talk.” She walked toward the shaded balcony, where she took a padded chair, and gestured to the one across the small table from her. “I’d offer you something, but I’ll have to leave before it comes. I’d rather hear from you-what you are doing, and why you wanted to see the autarch.”
“I’m here to warn you, assuming you haven’t heard. The prefect has decided to throw in with Antonin. I made the mistake of taking on one of his… I’d guess I’d call him an ally, if the chaos-masters have allies. That was the white wizard I ran into.”
“Antonin?” Her face reflected puzzlement.
“The most powerful of the chaos-masters. He did something to Tamra and seems able to defy the Masters of Recluce-at least for now.” I paused.
“Have you seen Tamra?”
My guts twisted again. “I haven’t seen her face, but I’ve seen traces of her. She’s tied up somehow with Antonin, I think against her will.”
“Against her will? I can’t believe that. Are you sure?”
What could I say to her? The silence drew out, and I looked out onto the paved yard, noting that the afternoon shadows cast by the building in which we sat enshrouded the stables and the front gate. Outside of the footsteps and a few voices, the yard was quiet, orderly.
Krystal waited, with the same grace I recalled, but with that added strength, almost like a cat that could spring from total relaxation into an attack.
Finally, I tried to explain. “Chaos is… different. You can’t use chaos even for the best of reasons without risking being trapped by it. People told me that, but I wasn’t sure. They were right, and I was lucky to meet a friendly gray wizard before finding too much trouble.” I forced a laugh. “By then soldiers in only two principalities were looking for my head.”
“How did you escape from Freetown?”
“I bought a horse and rode out.”
Krystal chuckled. “It wasn’t that easy, knowing you.”
“It wasn’t.” I didn’t elaborate. “What about you? I understand they burned the inn where we stayed.”
“I claimed to be from the north and took on the local blades. That included a few of the old duke’s bravos. Then I waited in the hiring hall until the new duke took over and agreed to terms with Recluce. That got me a contract with the first road-merchant to visit. When he reached Jellico, we had enough to buy nags for the trip over the southern passes to Kyphrien. I hired on with a freelance arms-master who trains bullyboys for the merchants, learned what I could. He suggested the autarch, who likes having women soldiers. Kasee liked me, and I started with a western road patrol. There were a lot of casualties. When the Duke of Freetown’s defectors tried to carve out that abortive duchy…” She frowned.
“You were the one? I’ve heard stories about you for nearly half a year.” I’d guessed she had been the road commander who had opened the reservoir gates on the supply train, effectively ending the siege of the border fort taken by the defectors. I’d meant to ask about Wrynn and about the incident with the Duke’s troops.
Krystal actually flushed, although the paleness of her skin had been replaced with a faint golden tan. “What about this Antonin?”
“He’s the one who’s turning the prefect’s troops into chaos-tinged maniacs. That’s why they never surrender, always fight to the death.”
She pursed her lips, nodding slowly. “We’d thought it was something of the sort. There are no order-masters in Candar, not that we can find.” She looked up. “I can’t stay now. I really don’t have time to get you settled. Would you mind waiting here for me? You could wash up, and there’s some fruit over there.”
Again, her request was not a request.
“How long?” I saw her face stiffen. “I didn’t mean that. I just worry about Gairloch-my horse… and I’m not exactly presentable.”
“Oh… I’ll be back well before dinner.”
I shrugged. She was the sub-commander, gracious as she had been. “I’ll be happy to wait.” Surprisingly, I was. I needed time to think. About a lot of things.
“You’re certain?” She stood.
So did I. “As certain as I am about anything these days.”
The Magic of Recluce Page 44