The Order War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Justen took a deep breath. Did he really have a choice… if he wanted to stay an engineer? He trudged after Clerve to get a drink of water himself, and to reclaim his apprentice.

  XIV

  Severa handed over the leather post bag to a young man Jus-ten did not know, apparently old Hawy’s replacement as the local post agent. Justen slipped down from the damp leather of the post wagon’s seat and stood beside the wagon, trying to use his limited order-senses to remove the moisture from the seat of his trousers. Finally, he shook the rain off his oiled waterproof and lifted his pack out of the wagon bed behind the second seat.

  Gunnar was dry-somehow, rain never landed on Weather Wizards, even though none of them ever talked about it. At least Gunnar’s pack had a sprinkling of water on the canvas. Gunnar brushed away the droplets before swinging the pack onto his back.

  “Thank you.” Justen handed two coppers to Severa.

  “My pleasure, young magisters.” The wagon-mistress’s face crinkled into a smile. “I hope you will enjoy your holiday, and give your mother my greetings.”

  Justen nodded.

  “Perhaps someday you’ll be as good a smith as she is.” Severa’s smile faded into mere politeness as Gunnar extended his coppers.

  “Thank you,” Gunnar said, and inclined his head.

  “Just don’t take yourself too seriously, Gunnar. You may be the finest Storm Wizard since Creslin, but a good smith’s of more use to most than either an engineer or a wizard.”

  “Yes, Severa.”

  The woman grinned. “Don’t mind me, boys. Been riding wagons too long. Off with you!” She watched as the post youth placed another leather post bag with the half-dozen already in the wagon bed.

  Gunnar waved, turned, and started walking. Justen paused, taking in the town for a moment. Not much changed in Wandernaught. Severa had stopped at the post house, next to The Broken Wheel, a two-story stone - and - timber structure, and the only inn. Old Hernon had died right after Justen had gone to Nylan, and Justen didn’t know the couple who ran the inn now, but the facade and sign were the same-even down to the cracked spokes on the broken wagon wheel.

  A young woman and a child stood under the small awning outside the coppersmith’s, waiting for the gentle rain to stop, and two men wrestled barrels from a wagon into Basta’s Dry and Leather Goods.

  Justen shifted his pack, stretched his legs, and began to walk on the rain-slicked but level paving stones-west, past the inn, past Seldit’s copper shop. He didn’t catch up with Gunnar until they were out of town and abreast of Shrezsan’s, the house-with its attached barn-sitting next to the stream where the family had woven wool and linen for generations.

  Actually, Justen recalled with a smile, Shrezsan had been one of the few girls who had liked him better than she did Gunnar-even if she finally had married Yousal, in the Temple no less.

  On the south side of the road rose the gentle, rolling hills that held the groves: cherry, apple, and pearapple. The rain had not quite stripped the flowers from the branches, which still held thin green leaves.

  Gunnar slowed and crossed the road, putting a leg up on the low stone wall separating the grass on the road’s shoulder from the orchard grounds.

  Justen waited, brushing water from his short hair.

  “I think I miss the groves the most. Even the pearapples in Land’s End aren’t the same.” Gunnar stroked his bare chin. “Wandemaught’s a better place than either Nylan or Land’s End. It’s peaceful.”

  “I suppose you’d put a big temple here, and move the Council to Wandernaught.” Gunnar smiled. “Why not? Maybe I will.”

  Justen swallowed. Did Gunnar really think he was going to be on the Council?

  The blond man sighed and turned back to the road. “Elisabet’s already getting worried.”

  Justen wondered how Gunnar knew that. Did he feel it?

  The two resumed walking. They reached the fork in the road and took the left branch. The timbered, black-stone and slate-tiled house stood on the south side of the road, the smithy behind it in a separate building. Two small groves flanked the buildings. A wiry figure in brown waved from the base of a tree and began to walk toward the house.

  “Gunnar! Justen! Mother! They’re here.” Elisabet bounced off the wide porch and down the crisply cut stones of the walk. She threw her arms around Justen, squeezed, and released him, then offered Gunnar the same treatment. “You’re here. Right when Mother said you would be.”

  “Of course they are. Severa always makes the post house by mid-afternoon.” Cirlin, still wearing her learner apron, had quietly appeared behind her daughter.

  “Good to see you,” boomed Horas, his dark hair plastered to his skull. “I won’t give you a hug. I’ve been out working with the trees, and I’m dirty and soaked.”

  Elisabet, sandy-haired and slender, resembling Gunnar, reached for her brothers’ hands. “Let’s get out of the rain. I can’t push it away for very long.”

  Gunnar glanced at his mother and raised his eyebrows.

  “I think we’ve got three of you.” Cirlin’s voice was wry. “I’ll be in soon. I need to finish some latches.”

  “Do you need any help?” Justen asked.

  “I’m not running an engineering hall.” Cirlin laughed. “Nerla’s a good apprentice. It won’t take long.”

  Justen let his sister lead him up onto the covered porch, where he took off his waterproof.

  Elisabet waited for Gunnar to remove his, too, then took both garments and headed for the rear porch that served as a sheltered place for drying coats and laundry.

  “Some things don’t change. The youngest still gets stuck with the coats.” Justen grinned.

  “Not always.”

  “Dinner’s going to be late,” announced Horas, standing in a corner of the porch and shaking water from the short, oiled-leather jacket he had worn. “Late, but good.”

  “It’s always good,” Justen agreed.

  “Not always,” retorted Elisabet, sticking her head out through the open doorway from the parlor. “Not when he makes the fish stew.”

  “Fish has a long and honorable tradition, but I’m not fixing that tonight.”

  “What are you fixing?” asked Elisabet suspiciously.

  “A surprise.”

  “I hope it’s the spiced-lamb casserole.” Elisabet turned to their father. “It’s chilly. Can I heat up some cider with the spices?”

  “So long as you use the striker and not magic,” called Horas. “And would you start the kindling in the oven, please?”

  “Even if that’s not funny, Father, I will. I’ll make sure to use the striker for both. It might take all evening.” Elisabet squared her shoulders and marched back into the house.

  Gunnar raised his eyebrows.

  Horas grinned. “I just teased her about that. I tell her that if she’s not careful, I might find out that she’s a throwback to Megaera. Not that she’s got the slightest flicker of the White about her, at least according to your mother.” He nodded toward the parlor.

  His sons followed him inside and he closed the door, then moved to the ceramic heat-stove in the corner, where he used an older striker. “I can’t ward off the chill with all that order-mastery. An old man like me needs his heat on days like today. It’s almost like winter hasn’t quite gone.”

  “Old man? Hardly.” Justen laughed.

  “He’s setting us up for something, Justen. You need more wood split?”

  “Well, it wouldn’t hurt if you did some before you left. Of course, I wouldn’t ask that as soon as you got here.”

  “But he couldn’t wait to make sure we know.” Justen seated himself on the padded stool nearest the stove. Unlike Gunnar, for him, the internal order-mastery necessary to raise his body heat to ward off the cold was work. And the heat of the stove was always relaxing.

  “Watch the fire for me, Justen, while I start in on dinner?” Horas closed the heat-stove and eased toward the kitchen.

  “I’d b
e happy to.”

  Gunnar settled into the old rocking chair that had been their grandmother’s, the one she had rocked in while she told them all the stories about Creslin and Megaera, and even the near-mythic tales about Ryba and the Angels of Darkness and the Demons of Light.

  Justen smiled, recalling her words: “It’s real enough if people believe… The truth behind the words is what matters, child.”

  Elisabet’s steps on the polished hardwood floors broke . Justen’s reverie. His sister carried two steaming mugs.

  “Thank you.” Both brothers spoke simultaneously.

  “Justen, will you play Capture with me until dinner?” Elisabet looked at the floor.

  “Aren’t you supposed to help Father?”

  Gunnar slid out of the rocking chair. “I’ll go help. Maybe by now, he’ll let me in on just how he does it.”

  “Gunnar cooks almost as well as Father.” Elisabet brought the board to the low game table and drew up a stool. “Wait. I forgot my cider.”

  While she retrieved her mug and set out the board and the tokens, Justen rose and added several already-split chunks of wood to the fire in the stove. Then he took the small broom and swept the wood dust and splinters into the dustpan and emptied them into the stove before carefully relatching the door.

  “White or black?” Elisabet sat with her back to the stove.

  “You can have black,” he offered.

  “Goody!”

  Justen set his token in the right rear three-token lattice.

  “Gunnar says not to bite on that.” Elisabet placed her first token on the left point of her main lattice.

  Justen dropped a token in the other four-point lattice on Elisabet’s side of the board.

  Elisabet added a second token on the other point of her lattice.

  Justen added his second token in the three lattice and dropped the third to complete it.

  Elisabet edged another token into the main lattice, right in the center.

  Justen frowned, then set a white stone in the other far-side three lattice.

  Elisabet pursed her lips, looking at Justen’s completed small lattice, but added another token to her centerpiece. “One more…”

  Justen shrugged and sipped the hot cider. “This tastes good.”

  “Thank you.” Elisabet placed another black token.

  They alternated placing tokens until Justen had four lattices, all the threes and fours.

  Elisabet put the seventh token in her first twelve and grinned, adding five more stones to complete it and then using the bonus to complete the second twelve.

  Justen added a token to the nine block, while Elisabet concentrated on the single seven.

  Token followed token.

  “I’ve got the four!”

  Justen grinned. “You certainly do.”

  Elisabet used the capture bonus to cut off the rear three.

  “That fire feels good.” Cirlin stepped into the parlor from the porch.

  “I beat Justen! I beat him, Mother!” Elisabet bounced from her stool.

  “Aren’t you supposed to help your father with dinner?”

  “Gunnar said he’d do it. I don’t often get to play Capture with Justen or Gunnar anymore. And I beat him!”

  “She did,” Justen admitted. “She plays a lot like Gunnar does. Maybe all Air Wizards play alike.”

  “I need to wash up,” Cirlin said.

  Justen rose. “So do I.” He turned to Elisabet. “Since you won, you may have the honor of putting away the board.”

  “But you have to wash up, too, Elisabet.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  Cirlin shook her head. Justen eased his stool back into its usual place and followed her into the kitchen.

  “Things are looking good,” announced Horas.

  Justen sniffed. Aromas of spices and lamb filled his nostrils. “You didn’t just fix that?”

  “Darkness, no. It’s been simmering all afternoon. It won’t be long now.”

  Gunnar carried two baskets of bread to the big circular table. “He’s even got the cherry conserve for you, Justen.”

  The younger brother walked to the corner pump and sink and began to wash his hands. Cirlin dried hers and motioned to Elisabet.

  “Can I help?” Justen asked Gunnar.

  “All this goes on the table.”

  Justen carried over the pot of conserve and the stack of plates, setting one plate in front of each chair.

  “Sit down, everyone,” Horas invited.

  “I get to sit between Justen and Gunnar,” Elisabet announced.

  When all five had been seated, Horas coughed, then spoke softly, so softly that Justen found himself leaning forward to catch the words: “Let us not take order so seriously that love and hope are lost, nor so lightly that chaos enters our lives, but live our lives so that each day reflects harmony and joy in living.”

  Horas set the casserole in front of Gunnar. “Help yourself. The dark bread just came out of the oven, specially for the lamb, and there’s the conserve, and ajar of pickled pearapples, and don’t forget the spice sauce in the pitcher…”

  After refilling his mug with warm cider, Justen waited for the brown stone casserole to be passed around. He ladled out a large helping for his mother and then one for Elisabet. He took and even larger portion for himself.

  “It’s a good thing I made plenty,” Horas observed.

  “You always make plenty. That’s why my forge is never cool.” Cirlin laughed. “Men householders feel like they have to feed armies, even when only the three of us are here.”

  Justen offered the bread to his mother, then to his sister. He inhaled deeply as he broke off a chunk and smelled the heavy warmth of the dark loaf. “Smells good.”

  “No one bakes the dark bread the way he does.” Cirlin dipped a corner of bread into the casserole and lifted it to her lips.

  Justen dipped his bread into the thick sauce, letting the spicy warmth, the mixed tang of rosemary and citril and bertil, ease down his throat.

  For a time, only the sound of eating rose from the table.

  “I can tell that no one was hungry.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Would you pass the casserole, Elisabet?” asked Gunnar.

  “You ate too fast, and you had a whole plateful.”

  “I was hungry. I’ve been working hard. Searching out the weather takes just as much food as smithing or engineering do.”

  “I suspect all good work takes energy.” Cirlin lifted the casserole dish and handed it to Gunnar.

  “Thank you.”

  Justen broke off another chunk of the warm, dark bread and slathered it with cherry conserve.

  “Something’s bothering you.” Cirlin looked at her younger son.

  Gunnar nodded in agreement.

  “I’m probably going to have to go to Sarronnyn,” Justen acknowledged.

  “You have to go?” The smith raised her eyebrows. “I thought the Council asked for volunteers.”

  “One of the master engineers has suggested that it would do me good.”

  “Altara?” mumbled Gunnar.

  “Not with your mouth full, son,” suggested Horas, “even if you are a great and mighty Weather Wizard.”

  “Of course.” Justen sipped the last of the hot cider and reached for the covered pot.

  “I can’t say as I’m surprised. We’ve played too loose with the Balance for too long.” Cirlin coughed and took a mouthful of cider. “You know that Dorrin warned about that.”

  “He did?” Elisabet sat up straight in her chair.

  The smith nodded. “But it doesn’t matter. He knew that people wouldn’t listen. They never do. That’s why I’m glad I’m just a simple smith.”

  “Simple?” Justen’s eyes darted to the wall and the interlocking black-iron circles that formed an image of the sunrise over the Eastern Ocean.

  “When will you leave?” asked his mother.

  “That hasn’t been decided.”

&
nbsp; “I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Gunnar said, tugging at his chin.

  “Most adventures aren’t. I think Justen’s saying he doesn’t have much choice,” Cirlin said.

  Justen chewed another mouthful of the warm, dark bread and cherry conserve, enjoying the taste before answering. “I don’t have to go. No one could make me go, but I don’t feel right about saying no. I can’t quite say why.”

  “What do you think, Gunnar? Not in your heart, but considering your sense of order.” Cirlin held her mug in both callused hands, letting the warm vapor drift across her face.

  Gunnar frowned before answering. “I trust Justen’s feelings. I don’t like his going to Sarronnyn. The whole business reeks of more than normal chaos.”

  “If there’s much chaos at all there, that’s a problem,” added Horas.

  Cirlin lifted her mug and drank slowly before lowering it. “It could be a problem for everyone in Recluce.”

  Silence dropped across the table.

  “Can you really catch the rain?” asked Gunnar, turning to Elisabet.

  “Yes, I can.” Elisabet laughed. “But I get tired soon. There’s so much rain. I don’t know how you do it.”

  “I don’t, silly little sister. I-”

  “I’m not silly.” Elisabet looked at her father. “Is there another surprise?”

  “I can’t keep anything a secret, I guess, not with four Order Wizards around this place. I had hoped you might be coming.” Horas grinned at his sons. “So I baked a couple of cherry-pear apple pies.” Justen had to smile in return, trying not to think about engineering and Sarronnyn and the chaos that awaited him, looking at the golden-brown crust of the pie Elisabet set before her father.

  XV

  Stones here and there had tumbled from the wall of the ancient causeway, but the structure across the gap from the Roof of the World to the ridgeline leading down toward Suthya and Sarronnyn remained sound enough that even the heavy steps of the Iron Guard neither shook it nor displaced another stone.

  With its gray uniforms, gray banners trimmed in crimson, dark-gray boots, dark-hiked weapons in gray scabbards, the Iron Guard of Fairhaven marched northwest down the causeway. Behind the gray assemblage waved the crimson-trimmed white banners of the White Company, crackling in the chill winds that whipped off the snow-covered peaks encircling the high plateau and the rebuilt citadel once called Westwind.