The Order War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Yes. It’s been along year.”

  “He’s still Justen,” said Elisabet.

  “You might say that he’s more Justen than ever.” Horas’s words were tinged with warmth and irony.

  “Where’s Mother?”

  “She’s at Nerla’s, helping her lay out her own smithy. She said she’d be back by mid-afternoon. She wasn’t-she said-going to do all the hard work for a former apprentice.”

  The three laughed at Horas’s mimicry of Cirlin.

  “Of course, now she’ll have to find another apprentice, unless…” Horas looked speculatively at Justen.

  “Who knows?” Justen shrugged.

  “I think the apples can wait a bit. Let’s go have some: thing to drink. There’s even some ale left, and-”

  “There’s a dark cake, with real molasses!” exclaimed Elisabet.

  “Will Gunnar be coming?” asked Horas.

  “I think so, but not for a day or two. He had to finish something with Turmin, and he said that you ought to have me to yourselves for a bit. I think he was afraid I’d gotten better at Capture.” Justen offered a quick smile.

  “Have you?” asked his sister.

  “No. I haven’t played since I left Sarron, and that was a year ago. Anyway, I don’t think I’m any better.”

  Horas turned, and his two children followed him up the stone walk toward the covered porch. He waited by the door to the house as Elisabet and Justen stepped onto the porch. “Redberry and ale, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Right.” Inside, Elisabet plopped on the stool by Justen’s knee and looked at her brother. “What happened?”

  Justen laughed. “Wait until Father comes back. I’m sure he’ll want to hear as well, and I don’t want to tell the same story twice.”

  “Then you’ll want to wait until Mother comes, and I’ll have to help with dinner, and then I’ll never get to hear it all.”

  “You’ll get to hear it all.” Justen ruffled her short-cut sandy hair. “You cut your hair.”

  “Long hair gets in the way, and besides, I don’t want to be just a brood mare, and that’s what all the girls with long hair are.”

  “Strong words, young woman.” Horas extended the taller mug to Justen.

  “True words!” Elisabet lifted one ok the two shorter mugs from the battered wooden tray. “Lydya is already saying how many children she’ll have!”

  Justen and his father exchanged quick smiles.

  “And don’t smile like that. I know what I want.”

  “That I believe.” Justen took a slow sip of the ale, holding it in his mouth for a moment. He was glad to find that his father’s brew was as smooth as any in Naclos, and he let the ale trickle down his dry throat.

  “Well, I think your mother is at the turn,” said Horas. “So we’ll wait to hear your story until she gets here.”

  “I told you so.” Elisabet looked at Justen,

  “In the meanwhile, we can tell you what has happened here.”

  “Not much,” suggested Elisabet.

  “I’ve added some seedlings to both groves, and I suppose you saw Shrezsan’s and Yousal’s house.”

  Justen nodded.

  “They’re redoing The Broken Wheel, and Niteral has taken over old Kaylert’s spread. He says that it’s just to get it ready for Huntal-that’s the boy who went to Temple school with Gunnar. He and Mara have two girls, and they didn’t like the fishing life of her family. So they moved back to the guest house at Niteral’s, but it’s really too small-”

  “Fishing… ugh,” interposed Elisabet.

  “Some people have to fish.”

  “Orchards are better.”

  “Not if you don’t have an Order Wizard in the family or if you don’t like bugs,” observed Horas.

  Elisabet stood and dashed off the porch and down the walk to greet Cirlin. “Justen’s home! He’s back!”

  Horas and Justen looked at each other.

  “Still half girl,” Justen said.

  “Not for long, I think.”

  Justen stood and gave his mother a bear hug as she stepped onto the covered porch.

  “What a welcome surprise! But then, Gunnar was always convinced that you’d be back.”

  “He knew more than I did.”

  Horas disappeared into the house for a moment, reappearing with another ale about the time that Justen and his mother disengaged themselves and Cirlin sat down in the narrow rocking chair in the corner.

  “All right. I want to hear everything,” announced Elisabet. “I’ve waited and waited.”

  “I think Justen’s hungry. Perhaps we should wait until after dinner…” Justen caught the twinkle in Horas’s eyes.

  “Father! You… you’re just teasing.” Cirlin shook her head. “Sometimes you’re too eager, daughter.”

  “Maybe so, but Justen promised I could hear it all.” Justen patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll hear everything that everyone else hears.” He took a deep swallow of the welcome ale before beginning. “I’m sure Gunnar’s told you all about what happened in Sarron until the final battle. I’ll start there…”

  The sun was touching the tops of the low hills behind the apple and pearapple groves when Justen finished his abbreviated tale of his travels across Candar. “… and when the ship pulled up at the pier in Nylan, there were Gunnar and Altara, waiting for me.” Belatedly, he remembered and reached for his pack, digging out the three of Dayala’s boxes he had set aside for them. He handed the first to Elisabet. “Dayala sent these.” Then he handed one to Horas and one to Cirlin.

  “This is beautiful! It’s mine? Really mine?”

  Justen nodded. “It’s yours, Elisabet.”

  Horas studied the woven grains in the box he held, then set the box gently on the table beside him. Cirlin set hers beside Horas’s box.

  “She is quite accomplished, isn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she rescued you from the Stone Hills, and made sure you got home safely? We owe her a great deal, don’t we?” Horas’s voice was low.

  Justen swallowed. “Not so much as you think. We are all caught in the designs of the Angels.”

  “You love her, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she’s a druid!” protested Elisabet.

  So am I, thought Justen, but he did not speak the words immediately.

  “She’s a druid, and you’re from Recluce!” Elisabet looked from Justen to her parents. “You’re not a druid. You can’t leave us,”

  “I am a druid. Now.”

  Horas nodded, as did Cirlin.

  “You aren’t staying, are you?” asked Horas.

  “Of course he is. He just got here,” insisted Elisabet. “He’ll change his mind. He has to.”

  “I’ll be here for at least a few days. Altara says that the . Council may want to see me.”

  “I’m sure that they will.” Cirlin took a long pull from the tall mug. “That time comes for all of us, though. Are you going back to Naclos?”

  “I don’t understand.” Elisabet looked from one parent to the other. “He was almost killed in Candar, and you both seem to think that he’s going straight back.”

  “Not straight, I think. Is it just the druid?” asked Horas.

  “She can’t have bewitched Justen. Tell me she hasn’t, Justen.”

  “No. I’ll have to go to Fairhaven.”

  Elisabet’s eyes grew wider. “None of this makes any sense. Can you all explain what you are talking about?”

  “Look at me, Elisabet. Look at me with your order-senses.”

  For a moment, Elisabet stared at her brother, then looked away. She shivered and stared down at the floor.

  “Now, lass, tell me what you saw,” requested Horas.

  “He… his order… there’s no chaos that’s not tied up. Gunnar, even, has flecks of… loose chaos.Justen doesn’t.”

  Elisabet stumbled through the words and finally looked up.

  . �
��It’s something…” She swallowed without finishing the sentence. “You meant it. The druids did something. Why?”

  “Yes, I meant it. But they didn’t do anything. It’s something I had to do. And it’s about… everything.” Justen knew how pretentious the words sounded, but that didn’t make them any less true. He hurried on. “I’m not going there for a while. I have a lot to do here.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Elisabet.

  “I can’t say I’m displeased either,” added.Cirlin.

  “Since we’ve disposed of that, how about some dinner?” asked Horas.

  The growling in Justen’s stomach provided his answer, and he grinned.

  “Justen!” cried Elisabet in mock outrage.

  He shrugged and then grinned as his father turned toward the kitchen. But his eyes burned, and he looked out at the all-too-familiar and all-too-strange apple trees that were lined up in the growing gloom of twilight.

  CIII

  “I’m sorry I had to cut short your time with your family. The Council was very insistent-”

  “Altara…” Justen cut off the chief engineer’s apology, at least the fifth he had heard on the three-day ride from Wandernaught. “You didn’t cut it short, and we’ll stop there on the way back. So don’t worry.”

  “But I do. They haven’t seen you in more than a year,”

  Justen took a deep breath, thinking about what lay ahead after his meeting the Council. Going back to Candar wasn’t going to be easy, but he did not see much choice, not when so much of the vaunted order of Recluce seemed so shallow… so one-sided.

  “You haven’t told me everything.”

  “No.”

  “What happened to the carefree Justen, the one who called weapons obsolete?”

  “I still don’t carry them, you’ll notice.” He tried to ease a light note into his voice.

  “Then was a game. Now you mean it.” Altara pointed to the black structures on the bluff ahead to the right. “There’s the Black Holding.”

  The five black buildings seemed rooted into the heavy rock that underlay most of Recluce, and yet, to Justen, they seemed somehow unbalanced, straight as they stood, as if they were about to tip sideways. He squinted and shook his head, but the feeling did not pass as they rode closer. He almost felt as though the ancient order embodied in the stones were about to fall on him.

  He took a deep breath as he reined up outside the small and ancient stable. As he dismounted, he patted the horse on the neck, and the stallion whinnied gently.

  “You’ve come a long way from that young engineer who could barely sit on a gray nag.” Altara laughed as she slipped off her bay gelding and handed the reins to the young man in black who had stood waiting as they rode up.

  Justen handed his reins to a young woman, and the stallion whickered and sidestepped. Justen looked at the horse, sending the faintest pulse of order toward the high-spirited animal, and added, “Take it easy, fellow.”

  The stallion whinnied and steadied. The young aide’s eyes widened and she moved back, even though Justen gave her a reassuring smile. He stepped across a shallow puddle held in the worn hollows of the ancient stones. The rain had not fallen as far south as Alberth, where they had stayed the night before.

  “Which way?” Justen inclined his head toward the walkway to the right.

  “This way.” Altara motioned to the left way, which circled the stable and took them on the south side of the holding, next to a raised terrace. The path ran between an ancient oak tree and the terrace. Before them, the Eastern Ocean glimmered silver in the morning light of summer.

  “Do you think the Council is really interested in where I’ve been?” Justen took the steps up onto the terrace and crossed to the closed, dark-pine door.

  “Of course not. You’re the only engineer or mage to have been beyond the port of Diehl in probably five generations. You’re one of the few people known to have survived the Stone Hills, and you’re the one whose design of ordered black arrowheads cost the Whites nearly an entire army. Why would they be interested in poor little Justen?” Altara grinned.

  “I thought I’d ask.”

  “If you have to play dumb, don’t play it quite that dumb.”

  Justen returned her grin and rapped on the door, which opened even as he lowered his hand. A woman in marine blacks and wearing the double shortswords of ancient and fallen Westwind waited.

  “Justen, from the engineers. I’m here to…” He looked at Altara.

  “We’re responding to Counselor Jenna’s request. I’m Chief Engineer Altara.”

  “Welcome to the Black Holding.” The marine smiled politely. “Do come in.” She stepped back and gestured toward a room beyond the small foyer. “If you would like to sit down, I believe that the counselors will be ready for you shortly.”

  The foyer walls were plain, just as Justen had remembered them from the one time his tutor had shown him the holding years earlier. Clearly, the Founders had not been interested in decoration, and their successors had left the holding as plain, as drab, as it was originally.

  The waiting room held nearly a dozen black-oak chairs and a low table, but all the chairs were empty. Altara took one by the window, where she could see a corner of the Eastern Ocean.

  Justen walked to the single bookcase, containing a score or more of volumes. His eyes ranged over the untitled black covers.

  “Are you going to sit down?”

  “We’ve been riding for five whole days. I’m not much better as a horseman than I was a year ago.”

  “It’s been more than a year, and you’re a lot better.”

  “Not much, but you’re right. It seems a lot longer.”

  “You’re a lot older.”

  “Crossing the Stone Hills does that.” Justen laughed. “I could use a dark ale now.”

  “You still drink that stuff?”

  “Why not? It tastes good.”

  “But you’re more ordered now. You remind me more of your brother, or of Turmin.”

  “I like beer.”

  .Clearing her throat softly, the marine stood by the door to the Council Chamber. “Engineers, the Counselors will see you now.”

  Justen followed Altara into the dark-paneled room, his eyes flicking to the portraits that flanked the windows- Megaera and Creslin, the Founders-and back to the three figures who stood behind the Council table.

  In the center was an older, dark-haired woman, flanked on the right by a man with brown wispy hair, and on the left by a redheaded woman who seemed close to Altara’s age.

  The older woman nodded. “I’m Claris. I appreciate your coming. Engineers. This is Ryltar… and Jenna.”

  The redhead acknowledged her name with a slight inclination of her head. Ryltar nodded abruptly.

  “Please sit down.”

  Justen took the right-hand chair, a comfortable but worn black-oak wooden armchair across from the redhead. Altara sat across from Claris.

  “‘The chief engineer has told us of how you got to Sarron and of what happened there-the outcome of the battle- but we don’t know what happened to you after the battle.”

  “Where should I start? After Firbek tried to turn the rockets on us?”

  “We’re familiar with that,” Ryltar said sharply. “Why didn’t you fall back with the others? How did you get separated?”

  “The Whites came up the hill so quickly, and I didn’t have a mount. I also didn’t have much strength left at that point. So I pulled a light-shield around myself…”

  Ryltar nodded for him to continue, and Justen detailed the way he had tried to get back across the River Sarron and how each attempt had pushed him farther into Sarronnyn, until he was south of Clynya.

  “Why did you try to cross the Stone Hills?” asked Claris, the older counselor.

  “I didn’t have much choice,” Justen began wryly. “There were several-score lancers and at least one White Wizard chasing me, and I couldn’t seem to avoid the damned vulcrow…” He went on to describe how
at every attempt to reach the bridge at Clynya he was almost herded southward and eastward to avoid capture. “… and in the end, there didn’t seem to be much of a choice.”

  “Were the druids… helpful? I mean, how did they receive you?” asked the younger red-haired counselor.

  Justen frowned. “It’s hard to explain. They rescued me from the Stone Hills. I didn’t make it quite all the way across-”

  “Just how far did you make it, young man?” interrupted the wispy-haired counselor.

  “By the end, I wasn’t in much shape to measure, ser. If my memory is correct, I lasted somewhere between ten and twelve days before I fell.”

  “And you had no special help?”

  “It sounds stupid, I know. I walked into the Stone Hills with a blanket, the clothes on my back, and a water bottle. At the time, it seemed a great deal more reasonable than it does now. I suppose being chased by a White Wizard can do that to your reason.” Justen smiled briefly, noting the cool look from the older counselor toward Ryltar.

  “You lasted twelve days on one bottle of water, and you’re not even a mage?”

  “Ryltar-”

  “Jenna, I’m just trying to see if our engineer is what he says he is.”

  “No,” Justen said. “One kind of cactus-the green one-has water in the pulp. So do the gray ones, but they made me sick sometimes. Twice I found little pockets of water in the rocks. I do have some order-sense. I couldn’t be an engineer if I didn’t.”

  “So you lasted for twelve days on what water you found?”

  “It might have been ten… could have been fourteen. I wasn’t thinking very clearly by then.”

  “And what happened?”

  “I fell and couldn’t get up.” Justen shrugged.

  Beside him, Altara grinned at his flat statement.

  “And?” pushed Ryltar.

  “When I woke up, someone had found me and was trying to get me to drink. It was one of the Naclans.”

  “One of the druids?”

  Justen nodded.

  “So-just like that-they rescued you, fed you, and carried you back to Diehl and then sent you home to Recluce, healthy and healed?” Ryltar snorted.

  Justen took a deep breath, paused, and instead of responding, extended his order-senses to touch Ryltar. A slight frown creased his forehead; it was not exactly chaos, he sensed, but… something. A disorder that verged on-