The Death of Chaos

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

The dust hung over everything, and seemed baked on me as Gairloch carried me northwest toward the small town and outpost where I had first entered Kyphros at a time that seemed so long ago. Sometimes, three years is more than a lifetime.

  I wasn’t too thrilled about stopping in Tellura, not with the casualties I had created, and I especially wasn’t looking forward to seeing Shervan’s sister Barrabra. But it was the last place to resupply before we reached the wizards’ road, and I would have felt wrong in avoiding Tellura, hard as I knew it was going to be.

  The outliers’ station looked the same-soft white plaster walls, red tile roof, sitting in the midst of red dust and more red dust.

  We reined up outside the front of the covered portico.

  Whuffff… Like the rest of us, Gairloch snorted out dust.

  “The Finest! The Finest!” A small girl ran up inside the building.

  I dismounted and handed the reins to Weldein.

  “But…”

  “I need to do something.”

  Barrabra’s ample figure stood silently under the archway in the late afternoon sun. As I walked up the three steps, I could see thin streaks of white in the blond hair, and lines in her face.

  “Master Wizard…” She inclined her head, but there was a darkness in her once-happy Kyphran eyes that had not been there before.

  “Barrabra… I am sorry.” I bowed my head. “Words don’t mean much. There’s not a lot I can say or do to take away the pain. I wanted you to know that I owe my life to Shervan and the others.”

  For a long time, she looked at me, just looked, before she asked, “Why are you here?”

  “I’m going to try to stop the Hamorians. They’re going to use the hidden wizards’ roads to take over Candar.”

  “Ah… if it is not the Prefect of Gallos, then it is the Emperor of Hamor… why will they not leave us alone?”

  “I don’t know, not really. People talk about order and chaos, and sometimes they are just names without meaning when those we love die.”

  “You are older.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You will age even more.”

  “Probably.”

  “Tell me… how did Shervan save your life?”

  “There’s not much to tell. We charged a chaos wizard, and he threw his sword at the wizard. The wizard had to stop the sword, and that let me do what I had to do.”

  “I see.”

  “No… lady… you don’t.” Weldein stood behind me. “Lerris led the charge on his pony. He carried only a staff. The chaos wizard broke Lerris’s arms and legs, and half his body was burned. Shervan and Lerris saved hundreds of troopers. I was one of those they saved. They carried Lerris back to Kyphros on a cart, and no one thought he would live. Now he’s going out to face an army alone-except for us.”

  Barrabra looked at Weldein. Weldein met her look.

  Finally, she looked down, then gave me a wan smile. “I knew you were unlike the others, but we had hoped so many would not die.”

  “So did I. So did I.”

  “Pendril died. Niklos died, too.”

  Nothing I could say would change that. For a time, the three of us stood there. Then Barrabra shrugged, a shrug of resignation, sadness, acceptance, and called, “Cirla!”

  The young blond woman-barely beyond girlhood and wearing die same maroon trousers and shirt she had more than a year earlier-rushed from the doorway.

  “You remember the wizard?”

  Cirla looked down at the tiles that comprised the floor of the covered porch.

  “Would you show them where to stable their horses? They need rest before they go out to fight.”

  Cirla looked up. Her green eyes met mine, without resentment, and I turned and followed her, reclaiming Gairloch.

  Grooming Gairloch seemed to take forever, and I felt as if there were twice as much dust on me when I was done. I tried to brush off the worst of the dust once I stepped out of the stall.

  “Why did Pendril have to die?”

  I hadn’t realized Cirla had just waited outside the stall.

  I swallowed. Finally, I answered her. “It didn’t have to be Pendril; it just happened that way. When battles or wars are fought, troopers die.”

  “The blond Finest”-her eyes flickered toward the corner where Weldein was wiping off his saddle-“he said you almost died. Is that true?”

  “Died? That’s what they told me. I don’t remember much until probably three eight-days after the battle. I couldn’t walk for a while, and then I had to use my staff.”

  “Why did you go out to fight?” Her eyes were open, and she wanted an answer.

  “Because I was afraid my consort-I thought she might be killed if I didn’t do what I did.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Krystal.”

  “Your consort is the commander, and she might have been killed?”

  “The autarch’s commanders fight. The last one was killed in the battle before the one where Shervan and Pendril and Niklos were killed.”

  “But the Emperor of Hamor doesn’t fight, and the Prefect didn’t.”

  “Should the commander ask outliers like Shervan to fight and maybe die if she always is safe from harm?” I knew Krystal felt that way.

  “Do you feel that way?”

  “No. He’s worse,” said Berli, racking her saddle. “He’s tough, our wizard is, but he won’t ask anyone to fight unless he’s in twice as much danger.”

  Cirla looked from the dark-haired woman to me, then shook her head. “No one ever told us.”

  “I wish I had, earlier,” I admitted. “I mean, about how brave Shervan and Pendril were.”

  “I never thought of Shervan as brave. He always talked a lot.”

  “He was brave.” I closed the stall.“He never looked back, never complained.” He’d probably been too brave. “And he did talk a lot. I missed it when I learned he had died.”

  A single bell rang.

  “Dinner is ready,” she announced, turning back toward the wing of the building with the big dining room.

  Berli, Fregin, and Weldein followed me into the long room. The same place at the head of the table was empty. I slowly took it, and Barrabra took the place on the left, the same spot where she had been seated when I first met Shervan.

  “Would you… ?” asked Barrabra, turning to me.

  This time, I did have something to say.

  “When I was last here, I prayed that right-thinking people would have the will to bring order from chaos, and around this table were many right-thinking people who did just that. They brought us order at the cost of their lives, and yet, chaos again threatens. Chaos will always threaten, and order often requires all that we have to give. May the sacrifices and the hopes of all those who have made our lives a better and more ordered place always be remembered.” I swallowed and looked at the table for a moment.

  “He sounds like a wizard now,” coughed the old woman. If I recalled correctly, she had said I hadn’t sounded like a wizard the first time I had come to Tellura.

  Cirla brought in the casserole this time, and the aroma of spices filled the room-chilies, and who knew what else.

  “Smells good,” whispered Fregin.

  Barrabra lifted the basket of bread and held it before me. I broke off a chunk and then held the basket for her.

  “Thank you.”

  I passed the basket to Berli and waited to serve myself some of the casserole. Weldein took a heaping measure, as did the young outlier beside him, before the dish reached me. I hadn’t felt that hungry, but the lamb and spices prompted me to take a normal helping before passing the dish to Barrabra. She took a small portion.

  I tasted the chilied lamb, the same dish I’d had before, but it didn’t seem nearly so spicy, and I was far hungrier than I had first realized.

  Slowly, slowly… the conversation picked up at the far end of the table.

  “According to the peddler… dreadful doings there was in Freetown… the Regent turned
into flame and a Hamor warship went up in flames, almost at the pier…”

  “The black devils, it was, with one of their invisible ships.”

  “The mighty Drakka. All her armor didn’t stop the black devils.”

  “A terrible time it is, these days,” offered the older woman in yellow, making the sign of the one-god worshipers, “like as to the end of the Legend when chaos dies…”

  “How can chaos die?” Cirla looked toward me.

  I had to swallow a mouthful of lamb before I could answer. “The only way I know is if order also dies. The Balance seems powerful enough to ensure that.”

  “Could order die?”

  Could it? What would be the death of order-or chaos? “I suppose anything is possible, but right now, I can’t think of a way to destroy either.” I had to shrug again.

  Cirla pursed her lips.

  “They say that the wizard has killed three chaos-masters.” The low comment came from the other end of the long table.

  “You believe in that?”

  “Why not? It’s a good story.”

  “It’s also true,” added Berli.

  “You saw this? With your own eyes?”

  “I saw the third wizard perish, and a friend was saved when he destroyed the first one.” Berli shrugged. “As for the second one… he doesn’t exist anymore, but I wasn’t there.”

  “What do you know about the wizard?” the young outlier asked of Fregin.

  “Don’t know about any wizards,” mumbled Fregin with a mouth full of lamb. “Saw him break a trooper’s wrist with a staff while he held off a dozen armed men with that piece of wood. Saw the toughest officer of the Finest bow more to him than the autarch. That’s enough for me.”

  “The wizard is what the wizard is,” announced Barrabra. “Enough of such foolishness.”

  Even Fregin paused from shoveling in food, but not for long.

  “How are the groves?” I asked.

  “They are dry, and we are lucky that the winter was so wet, for the summer will be longer and hotter yet, and perhaps the fall, too, according to the ancient.”

  “I am not that old,” snapped the elderly woman in yellow. “It takes no idiot to recognize that heavy winter rains can only lead to dry summers and drier falls. The clouds, they hold only so much rain.” She turned to me. “Is that not so, Master Wizard?”

  “Each cloud can only hold so much rain, but the winds and the oceans tell how many clouds there will be.” I didn’t wish to contradict her, but clouds alone did not hold the answer.

  “And the winds, they are from the dry north, and not from the wet south. So we will have no rain.” She gave the outlier a sharp nod.

  He shrugged.

  After dinner, I sat in the dimness of the portico.

  “Master Wizard?” Barrabra stood under the archway behind me.

  I gestured to the bench across from me. “Please sit down.”

  “I would not wish to disturb you…”

  “Please sit down.”

  A single birdcall echoed from somewhere, and I listened, but the call was not repeated.

  “You are sad to see us.” She brushed her hair back off her shoulder, and I noticed that she no longer wore the green combs. “The combs-Niklos gave them to me.”

  After a time, I answered. “It hurts to come back here. When I was last here, people sang, and they laughed. Now… you are unhappy, and I helped cause that sadness.”

  “But you came.”

  “I should have come sooner.”

  “You came when you could, and that is all we could expect of a great wizard.” She brushed her long hair back again, and I thought of the green combs of Niklos and knew she would never wear them again.

  “I am not a great wizard. I’m just a man-one who’s not very old-who’s trying to do what’s right. That’s hard because no one can tell you what is right and because, if you’re honest, you have to question even your own idea of what is right.” I snorted. “And then you have to act, and that’s when everyone gets hurt.”

  “You are older than you think. What you do will make you wiser and older before your time. Niklos and I had time to be young. I fear you will not.” She sighed. “I was angry at you, and then I saw you, and the faces of those who came with you. Now I am not angry, and I am glad I have lived as I have, and loved as I have, and I am even glad Shervan was with you.” She stood up, and brushed back her long hair yet again. “And Pendril. And even Niklos. They did not have to carry what you carry, and what you must.” She laughed a soft laugh. “I hope you will remember what it is to be young and to love. It does not last long, and less for the mighty.” She took a step and added, “Best you sleep while you can, Great Wizard.”

  For a time, I sat alone. Me-a great wizard? Barrabra acted as though I carried the fate of Candar on my shoulders. All I had to do was go out and block the wizards’ roads to buy Kasee and Krystal some time to figure out another way to stop Hamor from overrunning the rest of Kyphros. Just that.

  When I did climb onto the hot narrow pallet in the narrow room and lie back, I still could sense the groaning of chaos beneath Candar, and the growing nearness of the chaos wizard. Even the mountains seemed to shift in the darkness. Though I fell asleep quickly, I did not dream, not of silver-haired druids offering advice or chaos boiling from the depths, and for that I was glad.

  LXXXVIII

  East of Yryna, Gallos [Candar]

  THE QUIET SOUND of soldiers shifting in their places echoes through the chill air of the deep canyon. A huge pile of rock that has collapsed from the cliffs to the left of the old road blocks the canyon. The old paving stones seem to march right up to the rubble.

  Behind the troops stretch perhaps fifty kays of canyon that had once held the great Easthorn Highway. The base of that highway had been formed from the mortared and fitted stones that linked the foundation blocks. Each long section was straight as a quarrel, a segment of the road that had once run from ancient Fairhaven to Sarronnyn, a road that the white wizards had planned would run from Freetown-then called Lydiar-through the Westhorns and Sarronnyn and on to Southwind.

  Now, yet another wall of fallen stone bars any passage, and the Hamorian troops wait once more. Scattered cedar trees and scrub oak dot the rocky mass that blocks the western end of the road. Beyond the piled rocks, the canyon continues westward.

  A single figure in brown-brown sandals, tunic, and trousers-stands well before the Hamorian troops and studies the rock. The watercourse beside the uncovered section of the road holds a long narrow expanse of water, blocked by the fallen rock and the thin soil of centuries from its descent to the plains of Gallos.

  Finally, the wizard turns to the man beside him who wears the tan uniform of Hamor and a heavy pistol on his wide leather belt.“I can do it, but it will be even more dangerous than any of the rock piles I removed earlier. You need to march the troops back a good kay.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Almost that far back,” Sammel says with a smile. “There’s more than enough chaos to work with.”

  Leithrrse shudders.

  “Don’t shudder. You’re the ones who created it with all those ordered ships and weapons.” Sammel’s tone is matter-of-fact.

  The Hamorian envoy turns to the officer with the silver braid upon his vest. “You heard the wizard. Move them back.”

  The troops turn and march back along the paving stones, so recently scoured clean of debris with the lick of chaos flame.

  After a time, they halt and wait, and low voices exchange comments.

  “… bigger than anything he’s tried so far…”

  “… looks so kindly…”

  “… kindly, like a hungry mountain cat’s kindly…”

  A flash brighter than noonday sun, sharper than the closest of lightnings, flares across the stone mass.

  RRRRRurrrrrr… rurrrr…

  The ground heaves, and the rock mass shifts, and shifts… and a chasm opens where the drainage way had been. Ste
am flares into the air, bearing brimstone.

  Rocks and stone more than a hundred cubits high splinter, shatter, and slide northward into the maw of chaos.

  In time, the flames and heat subside, and the wizard in brown trudges over to the ancient kaystone. There he sits down, holding his head, ignoring the letters graven on the stone: “Yryna 75 K.”

  “When can we march?” asks Leithrrse.

  “Let it cool a bit.” Sammel does not look up.

  Where the rock had been a flat expanse of smooth stone, melted as smooth as glass, stretches half a kay to where the old road resumes.

  The soldiers mutter and shake their heads.

  Leithrrse drinks from his water bottle and wipes his forehead.

  Deep beneath the rocks, chaos rumbles still, and the ground trembles.

  LXXXIX

  DAYALA STOOD FOR a long time at the single pier at Diehl, just a step away from the plank leading up onto the Eidolon. A thin wisp of smoke trailed from the single green-striped black stack of the old Nordlan half-steamer, though the paddles were stilled.

  The silver-haired and youthful-looking woman turned for a last look toward the valley of the Great Forest of Naclos. She turned back, took a deep breath, picked up her pack, and walked up the plank to where the mate with the short blond beard and muscled arms waited.

  “My name is Dayala.”

  “Yes. You are the druid. Captain Heroulk said you should have the second cabin to yourself, Lady.” He bowed.

  She waited, not knowing where the second cabin might be.

  The mate smiled, then gestured to the sailor behind him. “Jelker, show the lady to the second cabin.”

  A blond-haired and slender youth stopped coiling a line and stepped up with a bow.

  “Thank you.” Dayala inclined her head to the mate.

  “Our pleasure, Lady. Druids bring good luck, or at least, keep away ill fate, and that’s the same for any sailor.”

  “Steam up! Plank up! Cast off!” ordered the mate, after turning from Dayala.

  She followed Jelker down the ladder and into the small cabin, where she set the pack on the lower bunk. Her toes wiggled on the hardwood, and she repressed a shiver.

  “Are you really a druid?”