The Order War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

Will last out my night.

  Soon I will die, dear,

  On the mountain’s cold height.

  The steel wind blows truth, dear,

  Beyond my blade’s might.

  … beyond my blade’s might, dear, where the waters foam white;

  Hang your head over; hear the wind’s flight.

  I told you the truth, dear,

  Right from the start.

  I wanted your love, dear

  With all of my heart.

  Sometimes you hurt me,

  And sometimes we fought,

  But now that you’ve left me,

  My life’s been for naught.

  My life’s been for naught, dear, when the waters foam white;

  So hang your head over, and hear the wind’s flight.

  So hang your head over, and hear the wind’s flight.

  Justen was the one who hung his head, tears still caught in the corners of his eyes at the terrible longing held in the golden notes.

  “Perhaps you recall this one. I apologize if the accent is not quite right, but it has been a long time,” the singer said.

  Dayala cleared her throat softly.

  “You do remind me, a bit, of her, young lady. What is your name?”

  “Dayala.”

  “A lovely name.” The singer turned cold, green eyes upon Justen. “Remember what you have heard here when you leave Naclos, fellow. Leaving is hard, but being left is harder. I know. I have done both.”

  “Who… are you? I ought to know, I feel.” Justen shrugged helplessly.“I’m always grasping, as though I were on the edge of things.”

  “Names do not mean that much, not after all this time. Once I was called Werlynn, and once I had children.” The man lifted the guitar. “It was hard to leave. Everyone thought I died on the journey. It was better that way. For them, at least.”

  Dayala nodded.

  “Do you recall this song?” The long fingers caressed the strings.

  Ask not the song to be sung,

  Or the bell to be rung,

  Or if my tale is done.

  The answer is all-and none.

  The answer is all-and none.

  Oh, white was the color of my love,

  As bright and white as a dove,

  And white was he, as fair as she,

  Who sundered my love from me.

  Ask not the tale to be done,

  The rhyme to be rung,

  Or if the sun has sung.

  The answer is all-and none.

  The answer is all-and none.

  Oh, black was the color of my sight,

  As dark and black as the night,

  And dark was I, as dark as sky,

  Whose lightning bared the lie.

  Ask not the bell to be rung,

  Or the song to be sung,

  Or if my tale is done.

  The answer is all-and none.

  The answer is all-and none.

  They sat on the bench for a long time after the silver-haired singer had gone, holding hands tightly, holding shoulders tightly, holding souls tightly.

  LXXXIII

  Justen set the iron blossom on the table, turning it so the light from the window would strike it until sunset.

  Then he laid the other items on the eating table: two nutcrackers, the strikers, the scrolled trivets, and two travel lanterns that could carry either the inset lamps or candles.

  Even with Yual’s help and the softer-wrought bog iron, he had spent, on and off, most of the spring and early summer creating the pieces-those and the design for the small water turbine in which Yual had been so interested.

  Justen peered out into the garden, where Dayala still walked among the low bushes that seemed more like trees. His hand fingered his once-again smooth chin, not that Dayala had seemed to note the difference, but he felt better clean-shaven. She had offered him a small vial of some sort of soapy oil that had reduced the number of cuts he suffered at the hands of his own craftsmanship.

  After pacing around the room, reorganizing his efforts once again, he glanced back at the iron trilia, the thin steel petals bending just so. But Dayala remained out in the garden, and the sun had begun to drop below the unseen horizon.

  Finally, Justen slipped out through the front archway and quietly walked into the garden. He paused by the first tree, looking down at the fist-sized closed pod that seemed larger than when he had studied it several days earlier.

  Dayala stood well to the back of the garden, her fingers intertwined with one of the bush-trees, oblivious to Justen as he approached.

  Watching with his senses as well as his eyes, Justen swallowed as he felt the slow transfer of order from the druid to the tree. Then he stepped back and eased his way to the front of the garden, shaking his head. Why had he not quite seen? If trees could be made to grow houses, certainly they could grow boxes, and who knew what else?

  Was Naclos always to be this way, where he took what was said in one fashion while it was meant in another? Where Dayala thought he understood, and he thought she understood?

  He paced across the short, open space before the house, back and forth, back and forth, as the twilight dropped across the house and garden.

  “Justen… you didn’t tell me you were home.” Dayala stood by die oak that formed the corner post of the house. She held something in her hand. “I wanted to show you something.”

  Although she smiled, Justen could sense her exhaustion.

  “You’re tired. You’re trying to do too much in the garden.” And this time, he knew what he meant when he spoke. Anyone who could walk him nearly to death across the Stone Hills and yet was too tired to eat after working the trees was definitely spending too much energy on her work.

  “Please?” She held up a box.

  He stepped forward, and she extended the nearly oblong object.

  His fingers closed on it and he shivered, feeling the smoothness, the order, and the absolute serenity the box embodied. Then he looked at the fine grain, at the design of hammer and anvil on the lid. “It’s… beautiful.”*More than beautiful…*

  “I did it for you.”

  His eyes burned, and he looked down.

  “Justen.”

  His raised his eyes to meet hers.

  “You cannot learn everything at once. And we both need something to eat, I think.”

  He nodded and followed her inside, still marveling at the box, at the finish and the grain and the design. How had she managed to grow the hammer and anvil?

  “Oh…” he blurted. “There’s something for you on the table.”

  Dayala was already bending over the iron trilia. “Justen, it’s gorgeous! It looks so real.”

  He shook his head, knowing that his poor work with iron could scarcely compare to the real artistry that she had shone.

  “And these… for Duvalla and the others. They will be so pleased. But the flower-”

  He watched as tears streamed down her face.

  “But… it’s nothing compared to this.” He held up the box she had given him.

  “No. My poor box is nothing.” *…nothing at all…*

  He set the box on the table next to the iron trilia, and then-hands touched.

  “Don’t you see?” she sobbed. “It is easy to make the trees grow into patterns. They want to help. But cold iron? It fights all the way, and to think that you made something so beautiful from metal. You put the fire that is within you in that, and it will never die.”

  “Don’t you see…” he answered, his voice breaking “… the trilia is only cold iron, nothing like your art.”… nothing at all…

  “But it is you, you!” Her fingers tightened around his.

  Through blurry eyes, he saw her and understood-finally, he thought-that the gift was the self and the sacrifice, not the object. And yet the object created from soul had beauty-because it was created from the soul?

  For a time, they stood by the table, eyes and hands locked.

  Then Dayala laughed softl
y. “We still need to eat.”

  He nodded, and his eyes fell on the box for a moment, while hers turned to me iron trilia. He set the box beside the blossom and lifted the other gifts one by one to the small side table while she brought out some fruit and a loaf of bread.

  LXXXIV

  Dayala set the berry bread on the oval breadboard, sliding the loaf into place with a long wooden paddle. The table lamp flickered with the breeze created by her movements.

  “I don’t know if I can eat any more.” Justen took a deep breath. “It smells good.” His hands cupped the mug that remained half-full of dark beer.

  “I learned it from her.” Dayala inclined her head toward Frysa.

  “Mothers always get the blame.” Frysa’s eyes twinkled for a moment. “Even when they’re praised.”

  “Unless fathers do,” Justen added. “My father has always been the cook. Gunnar took after him in that respect. I can do a little.”

  “Gunnar?” asked Frysa.

  “My older brother. He’s an Air Wizard.”

  “He still seeks you,” murmured Dayala. “That is what one of the ancients told me.”

  Justen swallowed. Gunnar, still searching?

  “He knows you are well.”

  “He’s probably worried, though.”

  “It must be nice to have a brother.”

  “I have a younger sister, too. Her name is Elisabet. She’s a Weather Wizard also, or she will be.”

  “We have few children here,” Frysa answered slowly. “Not all stay, but the great forest can support only so many.”

  Justen nodded. People would have to exist in the order-chaos Balance as well. “Are there too many people in other lands?”

  Frysa and Dayala looked at each other, then back at Jus-ten.

  Finally, Frysa spoke. “There is always a Balance. Here, we know that Balance, but we would not be so foolish as to declare what mat Balance might be elsewhere.” Her eyes flicked toward the iron trilia that sat on the side table. “I could not come close to such artistry. Nor could most Naclans. So how should we presume?”

  Justen sipped just enough beer to wet his throat. “So you suspect that there are too many people in at least some places, but you believe it is up to those who live in such places to reach their own decisions-or to fight with the Balance on their own?”

  “One can scarcely fight the Balance.” Dayala’s lips quirked after she responded.

  “I understand. They must reach their own terms with the Balance, but if they fail to do so…” He shrugged, then pursed his lips. ‘ Is that why I am here? To allow an outsider a chance to right the mess beyond Naclos?“

  “You were bound to try, whether we helped or not. You are a Shaper,” said Frysa flatly.

  “You try to help those who are going to try, and you always have, haven’t you?”

  “When we could. Many have refused our knowledge.”

  Dayala took a small swallow from her mug and watched the conversation between her mother and Justen.

  Justen took another deep breath. “We met this singer- Werlynn. You helped him?”

  “No. He went out to help you with his songs and his son. It was very hard on him, and he still is not… quite reconciled…”

  “His son?”

  “He had a daughter who was killed when quite young, and his son was blind for most of his life. They both died young… young for druids, anyway.” Frysa smiled sadly. “He blames himself.” She pushed back her chair. “I must go. Tomorrow I am going downriver to Diehl, and I will need to be alert for the river currents.”

  Justen and Dayala stood as Frysa did and walked with her toward the front archway, where Dayala drew back the hangings to let her mother pass into the soft, late-summer night.

  A faint chirping and the croak of a frog echoed in the darkness as the older silver-haired woman, her hair almost glowing in the purple darkness, slipped away toward the center of Rybatta.

  Dayala closed the hangings.

  After returning to the table, Justen looked down at the uneaten berry bread. “It smells so good, but I just couldn’t. I’ll have some in the morning.”

  “You understand your body best.”

  “I suppose.” Justen paused, then swallowed. “I’m almost afraid to ask.” He paused again before speaking. “I’ve met your mother twice now, but…”

  “My father?”

  Justen nodded, his heart dropping.

  Instead, Dayala laughed. “I should have told you. I’m sorry. You’ve already met him. But I didn’t want…” She shook her head. “Some things are different here.”

  Justen’s thoughts whirled. What man reminded him of Dayala? Where? Then he nodded and asked slowly, “Yual?”

  “Of course. That is why…” *I can bear the flame…*

  “But… why don’t they live together?”

  “Sometimes they do. But Yual likes the more open spaces, and sometimes he travels the Empty Lands, or the grasslands. He went to Sarronnyn several times before I was born.”

  “And your mother is more tied to the great forest. Yual told me that, except that he didn’t say it was your mother- just that it was his daughter’s mother.” Justen shook his head. “You all think I see more than I do. And I still don’t have the answers I feel I need.”

  “I could take you to see Syodra. She has a talent with the sands, and that was how I found you.” Dayala squeezed his fingers. “It would be easier…”

  “Easier?”

  “The sands at the edge of the Stone Hills are sometimes clearer, but,” Dayala shrugged, “they are not always… cooperative. For what you seek, the forest sands could help.”

  “Anything would help, I think.” Justen squeezed her fingers, his breath somehow constricted by her closeness and his desire. “Is this nut ripe yet?”

  He could feel the sadness in her.

  “No…not yet.”

  “What does it take to ripen it?” He tried to keep his tone light, knowing that he was scarcely deceiving her.

  “A trial. Your trial.”

  He nodded, not exactly surprised. How could she dare to love fully someone who could not stand up to the great forest on his own?

  “It’s not that. You have to understand-to feel-before you are ready.”

  He understood all too well. Dayala, like it or not, loved him, and she did not want to push him before he was ready. But if he waited, would he ever be ready? It was already late summer, almost fall, and the cold winds would be blowing across the Gulf and chilling Recluce before long, while the first snows had already begun to fall on the Westhorns.

  “Could we see Syodra soon?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  LXXXV

  “Syodra, this is Justen. Can you help him?”

  The older druid had silver hair longer than Dayala’s, but the same green eyes, although her tunic and trousers were of a silvered brown. She stood beside a raised bed of sand that was enclosed within the roots of a lorken tree.

  “I can show him what the sands say. He will have to find his own meanings.” Syodra smiled politely and inclined her head.

  “I will leave you two, The sands work better without confusion.” Dayala touched Justen’s hand and started down the path.

  “What are your questions? Think deeply about them as you ask.” Syodra dipped her hands into the colorless sands held by the lorken roots.

  “People call me a Shaper. All I want to do is to stop the spread of unbalanced chaos that is Fairhaven. How am I going to do that?”

  The sands quivered and colored, and Justen watched as there appeared an image of darkness spreading across a white tower, blotting it out. Then the sands churned and the space turned a brilliant white.

  “Darkness covering Fairhaven, replaced by light. What does that mean?”

  Syodra remained silent, and Justen nodded to himself. “My meanings, I know.”

  He wet his lips, then asked,“I’m supposed to be myself in order to succeed in this trial. How can I be that?”
>
  The second image was clearer, that of Justen clasping a bloody sword and a skeleton to himself and bowing his head.

  “That seems rather far-fetched, but there must be a truth there… somehow,” Justen said wearily. “What would you show me?”

  Syodra inclined her head and glanced toward the colored sands, which boiled on the table, then came to rest with an image of a red-haired woman dressed in black. Beside the picture was a flag bearing a crossed rose and blade.

  “Are you saying that you’re responsible somehow for Megaera becoming a founder of Recluce?”

  The sands churned again, less violently, and the image of two broken black bracelets replaced the image of the banner.

  Justen shook his head. “I don’t understand that one. I suppose it really doesn’t matter. I’ll either understand it or…” He shrugged. “Why is it that I can’t quite grasp things?”

  The sands boiled again, and a single pillar of black appeared, separated by a low wall from a pillar of white. A chain of green led from the white pillar to the black, except that the links from each pillar ended in a sundered link lying on the smooth stones of the wall.

  “Anything else?” The image of his clasping the bloody sword and the skeleton echoed in his thoughts, and he shivered.

  “No. You have seen enough.” The silver-haired woman smiled sadly, then pointed toward the pathway.

  Justen inclined his head, bowed slightly, and backed up several steps. He turned and eased past the huge black oak. In the root that had been grown into the shape of a bench, overlooking the natural pond, sat Dayala.

  “Did you find what you wished?”

  At the combination of huskiness and music in the druid’s voice, Justen sighed and slowly sank onto the seat beside her. “Not exactly. It’s like everything else I find in Naclos. Everyone is so helpful, but half the time I don’t understand the answers, at least not until later.”

  Instead of looking at her, Justen idly reached for a long stem of grass. He shivered again at the image of the sword and skeleton.

  Dayala’s hand touched his.

  “Sorry,” he apologized. “I forget.”