The Death of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “People don’t like to use powder much because a wizard could touch it off,” mused Krystal. “There aren’t that many white wizards. It’s a risk, but not that big a risk.”

  “Would you do it again?” asked Kasee.

  I looked blankly at the two of them.

  Krystal looked at me and smiled.“Not if I had any choice.”

  I felt complimented without knowing why, but I went on. “The powder’s pretty much inside steel casings. That’s close enough to cold iron that you’d have to have a strong wizard to get it to explode from any distance.”

  “There aren’t that many chaos wizards any more.”

  I frowned, glancing at the overbalanced desk again. “There’s something else that still bothers me.” I went on to explain about all the troops and rockets moving north.

  Kasee pulled at her chin, half nodding. Her hair was tousled, almost as though she had been tugging at it. “It’s probably not that big a mystery. We can’t afford a big attack on Hydlen. Berfir has to know that. Either a small body of troops can hold or they can’t. Either way, we’re not about to rampage across southern Hydlen.”

  “But why did he even take the spring?”

  “To get the brimstone for the powder to build the rockets to use against Duke Colaris,” answered Krystal. “Colaris has been recruiting for over a year. A lot of soldiers left Gallos after Antonin died, and I’ve had some reports that there’s a new prefect.”

  “I heard that in Arastia,” I admitted.

  “We don’t know if it’s true. But Duke Berfir’s biggest problem is Colaris, not Kyphros.”

  Something about it all still bothered me. Finally, I spoke up. “All of this makes sense except for one thing. Why did Berfir or the wizard or whoever it was use rockets on Ferrel?”

  “Maybe it was a mistake,” suggested the autarch. “Sometimes, hotheads don’t do as they’re ordered.” She and Krystal exchanged faint smiles.

  I wondered. Should we just leave the spring alone?

  “No.” Krystal answered my unspoken question. “If we intend to act, it should be now.”

  “I would tend to agree,” said Kasee. “Why do you think so?”

  “Berfir’s in no position to block us with much force. If he fails against Colaris, we don’t have to worry much. If he’s successful with those rockets, he can bring them back south. If we can take the spring and fortify the area, the rockets aren’t likely to be nearly as successful against fixed emplacements-if he has any left. They can’t be that easy to make.”

  I understood that logic… sort of. There was another problem. “How do we handle Gerlis?”

  “We don’t. You do, if you can. If you would.” Kasee paused. “I can’t command you, but we have to try, one way or another.”

  I had this feeling I’d been conscripted again. But if she were going to order Krystal into battle against Gerlis, what choice did I have? “And if I can’t? He’s even more powerful than Antonin.”

  “We try to avoid him. Wizard fire isn’t much good against rocks. It works best in the open field, and we aren’t going to give him that. His rockets won’t be that much good against scattered scouts, or troops trained to take cover using the terrain.”

  The idea was all right for avoiding rockets and firebolts, but how did you command troops scattered all over mountains? I also was worried about Gerlis. They hadn’t felt his power. I had, and merely saying he was more powerful than Antonin didn’t exactly convey the feeling of that power.

  “Tactics ought to be simple enough,” Krystal noted. “If we hold in emplacements, something like stone shelters or fences-”

  “Caves?” asked the autarch.

  “No,” Krystal and I said simultaneously. I shut my mouth.

  Kasee smiled with a twist to her lips. “When you both talk like that, I have the feeling that I made a real mistake.”

  “Powder and fragments do a lot of damage in confined areas. If this wizard could guide a rocket into a cave, I don’t think anyone would survive, not unless it were a very deep cave. Then, how would the troops do us any good?” asked Krystal.

  I just nodded.

  “You need a barrier, almost flat, that the rockets don’t penetrate.”

  “What about doing what Lerris did again, with fast squads?” Krystal looked at me. “Would you mind leading them back the short, roundabout way?”

  “Not if you’re leading the main body.” I forced a smile.

  So did she.

  Kasee looked at me, then at Krystal. “You’re not happy about this.”

  “I have to do what works. Does it matter whether I like it?”

  “No,” answered the autarch. “We have to do something. The last time someone started raiding the borders, we didn’t do anything, and look what happened.”

  Krystal looked at me. I shrugged. I couldn’t fault the logic, but I thought there was more behind Berfir and his white wizard than I really wanted to know, and I still didn’t have an answer, not one that I liked.

  “How do you think we ought to take the spring?” asked Kasee.

  “If we have to take the spring, we should take it from behind, if we can. Yelena can lead a force with Lerris from the east. Berfir just doesn’t have that many troops. I don’t think, white wizard or not, that he can hold on two fronts.”

  “You question whether retaking the spring is wise?”

  Krystal shrugged. “There’s no easy answer. If we let Berfir hold the spring and he does prevail against Colaris, he can use the brimstone against us. If Colaris destroys him, then we may have lost a lot of troops for nothing.”

  “What if we wait?” asked the autarch.

  “Unless we can be assured of knowing what happens in Freetown almost instantly, Berfir can probably reinforce the spring faster than we can get there and take it.”

  Put that way, even I wasn’t sure that going ahead wasn’t the best way.

  “We’ll need to protect the Finest and the outliers we use as much as possible. But we can combine that with taking attention away from Lerris and Yelena. We advance the main body slowly along the direct road, with vanguards way in front of us. That serves two purposes. It makes Berfir, or his wizard, or whoever’s in charge, worry about the main body. Lerris, and the others, will take the circular route-not quite so circular as the one he took getting to Hydlen-and hit them from behind.”

  “What if there are too many?”

  “That’s for Yelena and Lerris to find out. If there are, then they don’t attack. Lerris can see beyond his eyes a little,” Krystal pointed out.

  “A very little,” I confirmed.

  “We get close enough to monitor his attack. If they’re distracted, that gives us an advantage. We’ll need a lot of archers, though, as many as we can find.”

  Mainly, from that point on, I listened.

  “Lerris…”

  “Huhh?” I sat up. I must have been dozing. Kasee winked at me. “Take him home, Krystal. One day won’t destroy our plans, and he needs the rest anyway.”

  “I’m fine.”

  They both looked at me.

  Krystal took my arm and walked me out past the guards. “You need rest. You look like a scarecrow. I’m sorry I dragged you here.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You will be.” Krystal shook her head. “Do you see how loose your trousers are?”

  “Tamra said I was getting fat and sloppy, anyway.”

  “When did you start listening to Tamra?” I shrugged. I was clearly going to get some rest. As we walked toward the stables, she squeezed my hand. “I’m glad you’re back.”

  So was I. I just wished it would be longer before we headed out again.

  XXIV

  THE FOUR DRUIDS and the ancient stood in the time-draped grove of the Great Forest and watched as darkness and light boiled across the sand map of Candar.

  Of the silver-haired druids, only the eyes of the youngest, a woman scarcely appearing more than a girl, were upon a tiny point of blackened sa
nd separate from the darkness that seemed to envelop both ends of the sand map of the continent. Two flares of white sand erupted from the eastern section of the map.

  “The darkness of this order has no. soul,” stated the ancient, “only the cold ordered iron of those who fell before the demons of light. Even the Great Forest fears such order.”

  “It has no song,” said the frail silver-haired singer.

  “You always speak of songs, Werlynn.”

  “And you, Syodra, forget the songs.”

  “Some of us have to live them,” said the youngest druid. “And the price is high.” She looked away from the map.

  “So are the joys, Dayala,” pointed out Syodra.

  “They are,” admitted Dayala, but her green eyes bore a darkness as they flicked to the single isolated point of black on the sands. “But joys end more quickly-and more painfully.”

  “There is always a price,” intoned the ancient. “This one will be greater, far greater, for order without soul is terrible, indeed.”

  “They have not heeded the songs,” added the sole male, “and the truth of their notes.”

  “Leave it to the Balance,” suggested the druid who had not spoken.

  “Leave it to the Balance? Yes, Frysa, leave it to the Balance. We, and generations, are still paying for the last decision we left to the Balance.” Dayala took a deep breath. “The Balance works, but it is far from kind. Nor is it always merciful or just.”

  “And did we not pay more dearly for those we did not leave to the Balance?” asked the ancient.

  Dayala’s eyes dropped to the sands again and to the spreading darkness.

  XXV

  AFTER KRYSTAL ENSURED that I got some rest, although certainly not all of that could have been called rest in any language, by the next day I was looking over my workshop, and she was back hard at work in Kyphrien.

  While Krystal and the autarch and the new subcommander, a woman named Subrella, who’d been the district commander in Ruzor, worked on the logistics and the detailed plans for exactly how to recover the brimstone spring, I went back to the chair set for Hensil.

  Before I’d left, I’d gotten all eight chair backs done, rough-finished, at least, and it was time to start in on the seats and legs. The leg design was all turning, rather than steaming or bending, and time-consuming. I had to use the first chair as a sort of template for the rest of the set. In between times, for a break, if harder work were really a break, I went back to the time-consuming chiseling of the insets for the diamond-shaped back-plate with the inlaid initial H.

  Of course, the turning part got delayed because the band on the foot treadle broke. After I fixed that, I had to stop to sharpen the chisels. I’d been gone long enough that it seemed like every edged tool in the shop needed to be sharpened.

  About then, I wondered when I was even going to start on the desk for Antona. I hadn’t even figured out what I’d need for the woods, let alone the bracing and thickness. I took a deep breath, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. While it might be chill outside, I’d built the shop snug, and the hearth helped, not only for heating and mixing glues or steam, but for keeping the woods from getting too hot or cold.

  Rissa hammered on the door. “Master Lerris?”

  She stepped inside and held a stool with a broken leg.

  “Can’t it wait?”

  “It’s been waiting since the day after you left, nigh on three eight-days, and I need this to get to the higher shelves. I told you those shelves were made for a giant.”

  I took a deep breath. “Set it over there.”

  “Thank you, ser.”

  The stool leg was easy enough, and I even had a leftover piece of oak that I turned down quickly. Then it was three holes with the brace and bit, some smoothing, and some more cleaning out, and then the glue.

  It wasn’t a problem, but I knew I’d spend more time dealing with Rissa’s gentle reminders than it would take to fix the stool if I didn’t get it done soon.

  Then I went back to turning down and shaping the chair legs. I looked at the only partly begun cedar carving, but it would have to wait. Carvings didn’t pay for wood or tools or food.

  Then I thought about my parents, again, and the letter I hadn’t written. I took a deep breath.

  It was almost mid-morning before Rissa tapped on the door again.

  “Ser, we’re near out of stove-length wood. I can split, but-”

  “You can’t saw,” I finished.

  I didn’t have time to saw, either, and I’d need someone on the other end of the big blade anyway. With another breath, I unlocked the storeroom and rummaged in the hidden cabinet for some silvers. After locking up again, I handed her four silvers. “See if you can get Gelet and Hurbo to saw the second stack behind the stable. Or someone else.” I paused. “Take the stool. The glue needs to set until tomorrow.”

  Rissa looked at me for a moment. I looked back. “Sawing wood does not finish chairs. If I don’t finish these, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, I can’t afford the food you want to cook on that stove.”

  She took the coins, not quite rolling her eyes, and I went back to the turning. When my foot got tired, I took out the narrow chisels and started the inlaid channels on the third and fourth backplates.

  Rissa put her head in the door. “I’ll be taking the mare to find Gelet, Master Lerris.” I just nodded, not taking my eyes off the chisel. “I said I’d be taking the mare-” I had to look up. So I did. “Fine, Rissa. Take the mare.”

  “I hope it doesn’t take too long to find someone to do the wood.”

  So did I, or I’d be getting reminders for days. I really wanted to get as much done on the chairs as I could. For however long the campaign for the spring took, I wouldn’t be doing woodwork, and those would be days where no coins were being generated. I had some coins left from Kasee’s purse that I hadn’t given back, more than a few, but I felt bad about keeping them in some ways.

  That was another thing I needed to talk to Krystal about- among other things-if we ever got much time together. Sometimes, we were just too tired to talk. Sometimes, we did a lot of holding, and that was good, too. But we weren’t talking about what the white wizard was doing, and that wasn’t good.

  I took a deep breath as I heard the mare carry Rissa out of the yard and readjusted the foot treadle before I went back to turning the chair legs. Even with sharp blades on the chisels, it was a slow, slow business. Cherry is tough. That’s what makes it good furniture wood.

  By the same reasoning, that was what made reading The Basis of Order valuable. It was tough, and I still didn’t understand half of what was in it. I understood that there might be an order-based way to use chaos on Gerlis, if I understood what the book said, if I could figure out how to make it work, if I could survive to get close enough to Gerlis to try it…

  I readjusted the chisel and pumped the foot treadle. Turning cherry-tough as it was-was a lot easier than handling order and chaos.

  XXVI

  THE EIGHT CHAIRS, all rough-finished, sat in a line across the workroom floor. With fine-shaping, a bit tedious, and some polishing and finishing, they’d be ready for Hensil. As it was, an apprentice, a careful one, could have finished them. Of course, I didn’t have one, and no prospects at the moment. That was my own fault, though. I hadn’t really looked for one, and finding a good apprentice was hard, as I had illustrated for both Justen and my uncle Sardit with my failures.

  Still, I looked at the lines of the chairs and smiled-for a moment. Even unfinished, they showed quality. I hadn’t quite finished Kasee’s wardrobe, although it looked finished, and I had the two desks to complete. The one for Werfel was a simple single-pedestal desk in red oak, less than an eight-day from completion. Antona’s I hadn’t started. I hadn’t even done wood selection.

  The patter of a light winter shower came and went, and I could sense horses on the road. Rather than start something else, I went out into the yard and waited. The damp smell of barely wett
ed clay disappeared in the light cold wind as the clouds carrying that rain moved eastward. The sky toward the Westhorns was clear.

  Before long, Krystal and her guards rode into the yard.

  Perron had pretty much replaced Yelena as the head of Krystal’s personal guard, because Yelena was being groomed for more leadership, especially for the attack on Hydlen. After Krystal’s quiet words, he had been even more deferential than Yelena had been. He nodded at me from the saddle. “Good evening, Master Lerris.”

  “Good evening, Perron.”

  I held out a hand for Krystal, but she ignored it, her mind clearly elsewhere. I took the reins and led the black into the stable where we both unsaddled him and took turns brushing him down.

  I patted Krystal on the shoulder once or twice, but she didn’t want to say much, perhaps because she was thinking about everything that was threatening.

  When we walked into the yard from the stable and past the end of the building that served as a bunkhouse, Krystal looked at me. “Let’s walk up on the hill.”

  Behind the house, the trees rose to a low hill beyond the flat part that had once been a sheep meadow before Kasee gifted me the land-it had reverted to her when something strange had happened to the previous owner. The land had been part of my reward for taking on and being fortunate enough to eliminate Antonin.

  Someday, I intended to use the small stream for my own millrace, and cut and season my own wood. There were all three kinds of oaks, and even a handful of lorken, although they only grew near the very top of the hill.

  Krystal’s eyes were darker and more serious, and there were deep circles under them, and her hair was showing streaks of silver. I needed to work on that, too, like everything else. She still wore her gold-braided jacket, and I had sawdust on my sleeves.

  I brushed off the sawdust and took her arm as we walked up the path. It ran next to the covered water line that fed the house from the pond I’d made on the hillside. The gray leaves of the oaks rustled in the light and cold winter wind, and the sky was a velvet purple, with a trace of pink along the western hills. The air was damper on the hill, with the acrid scent of winter leaves.