The Order War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Waves of white-red destruction, of lost and sundered souls, poured back toward Justen, and in desperation, he turned the light-knife on that misty white, slashing through it as if to shield himself, to shield Gunnar, even to shield distant Dayala.

  The grinding sound of stonework collapsing and the distant, almost hissing, screams of survivors, of innocents dying under flame, stone, and churned earth, were all but lost behind the searing heat and boiling edge of the order-chaos blade that Justen turned back down across the handful of White lancers who had followed the Iron Guard uphill and had nearly reached a spot almost directly below the balloon.

  Sssssstttt… No screams followed the.wave of light. Only a blast of white pain rocked through Justen with the deaths so close below, and the slope on the Fairhaven side of the hill glistened like glass. Lumps-like the remnants of the shepherd’s hut-protruded from the shimmering surface.

  Justen, nearly blind with the white agony, tried to rebalance his forces, to turn them and the order-chaos blade back toward the remaining White Wizards.

  Hhhsssttt…

  With the continuing barrage of firebolts, most of them held at bay by Gunnar’s efforts in pulsing order-shields and holding the clouds away, the balloon and basket bounced again. The hissing overhead grew louder, and the basket swayed, sinking even closer to the ground. Justen squinted, trying to concentrate, trying to remain ordered and calm even as the order-chaos blade bounced around the chaos-shield of the High Wizard.

  The blade shivered and slashed across the center of Fairhaven, somehow held together by a web of white. With the collision of the light-blade and the white web, stonework melted. Ancient trees exploded into flames before falling like charcoaled logs against nibble and melted stone. Stone avenues flowed like white-lava rivers.

  Even in the balloon the air was hotter than midday in the Stone Hills, filled with the odor of scorched vegetation, charred flesh, and ash and cinders and more ash. Like an oven, the valley baked in the light-blade-forged twilight, where those few buildings that remained became ovens that baked their inhabitants.

  The only sun in the sky was the light from the order-chaos knife wielded by Justen, and yet that light gave no cheer, only heat and agony.

  Another pulse of chaos flared into the sky and arced toward Justen-a massive firebolt propelled by the will of desperate White Wizards, held tightly by the High Wizard himself, whose broad shoulders and sweating face seemed to fill Justen’s mind.

  Hsssstttt…

  Again Justen wrestled the order-chaos blade and the energy gathered from the skies of Candar back toward the High Wizard, focusing it not only on the shield, but around the shield. Another land wave shivered the ground, rocking the balloon through the tethers, and Justen was forced to grab onto the basket to avoid being pitched out.

  The ground around the shielded wizards bubbled as though it boiled, and steam gouted up in pillars, even through the stones of the wizard-protected section of the road.

  Another firebolt flared past Justen and into the balloon, burning through one cable holding the balloon to the basket The balloon slewed wildly, and Justen tightened his grasp on the basket, trying still to force the order-chaos blade back upon the White Wizards.

  Sssstttt…

  The trees across the road and behind the wizards flared like black rockets before collapsing into charcoal, which in turn was covered by molten rock oozing down from the melted stone of the road.

  Hsssttt!

  Lashing back against the firebolts, Justen forced the order-chaos blade toward the White Wizards, where he again played it against the High Wizard’s shield.

  “That’s… it. Keep it centered…” he grunted, trying to force ordered-light squarely against the lines of focused chaos wielded by the High Wizard.

  Sssstttt! Cruummppttt!

  The ground seemed to buckle and explode simultaneously, spewing order and chaos into the skies and deep into the earth. Lines of dark fire and rays of flame heat arced across the glowering sky that abruptly flared sun-white in brilliance.

  On the southwestern side of the White Wizards’ shield, the light-blade gouged a pit so deep that what had been a raised stone road melted into a glass-lined pit. Hhhssttt!

  Justen mentally walked the order-chaos beam back toward the High Wizard. Yet that tight shield held… and held… even though it pulsed against the violence Justen directed against it, each pulse throwing Justen’s light-sword back across the valley.

  With each flash across the valley that had held the White City, more stonework slumped into waxlike heaps until the entire valley seemed to be in ashes-black, gray, and white-“out of which reared shiny, once-molten stone, as though the bones of the burned corpses showed through more clearly with each pass of the ”fire-sword of the skies.

  Hanging on to the wicker, Justen made a last effort to swing the wildly spinning order-chaos light-sword back onto the shield of the High Wizard. Sssttt… crumppttt…

  Against the buckling of order and the tide of white, against the unseen ripping in the fabric of what was, against the white and black knives that seemed to slash through him, Justen closed his eyes and tried to picture himself as a lorken of Naclos, rooted in the soil and order beneath Candar, drawing order from the deep waters, from the iron in the rocks, and from all the growing plants that had struggled against the nibbling of chaos.

  The wind whipped past Justen with the force of a waterspout. He felt himself being thrown against the basket of the balloon, and his fingers dug deeper into the fragile wicker as the balloon, swinging wildly, ripped free of one of the tethers.

  Almost unaware of his teeth biting through his tongue, Justen curled the order-blade into a focus, attempting to lock the wizards within order, putting forth a massive effort to chaos-order Balance the White Wizards forever.

  “Aaeeaeeü…”

  “Ooo… nooo…”

  Even locked into himself, Justen could sense the twisting and folding of order and chaos roll across the valley like the heat from that second sun, dragging the remaining White Wizards-those who had tried to unleash the full force of chaos against Justen’s order-chaos blade-down inside the shield they had erected, down… down into some distant place where their souls seemed to call as if from a deep well.

  Deliberately, as if he and his thoughts were moving through molasses, Justen twisted the massive forces of order held through the fire-eye, twisted them like a key in a lock to seal the wizards behind their own shield… forever!

  Faces flashed before him: swarthy faces, fat faces, and a haunted, thin face almost like that of an Angel, the eyes filled with suffering. But he locked order around that chaos.

  *Justen, you must… must balance.* Even Dayala’s thoughts were weak, fading away into smoke.

  Crackk! The fire-eye exploded and filled the air with sudden but momentary silence, and weak sunlight replaced the darkness that had descended across the valley of Fairhaven. Clouds of ashes roiled over the valley, and cinders fell like rain.

  A heavy roll of thunder rumbled from the high, dark clouds that began to cut off the remaining sunlight.

  The balloon bounced wildly and swooped lower and lower, back toward the hill below in a series of pendulum-like swings, jerking to the end of the remaining tether and back.

  Justen glanced toward the approaching ground. His eyes burned, blood ran from his mouth, and his arms and legs were bruised, leaden. What could he do? How? His senses seemed almost paralyzed, and he struggled to raise his arms, but the impact with the ground and the blackness that rose from it crashed into his thoughts, scattering them.

  Around him, the land shuddered. Smoke rose into the sky and fell, arid white knives seemed to slash his flesh from his bones… while drums rolled across the heavens and each drum-roll pulverized his already smashed bones.

  Thrap… thrap…

  … thrap… thrappp…

  The heavy tapping increased, and cold blows struck Jus-ten across his face. Slowly, he tried to swallow, despite his dr
y mouth and swollen and bloody tongue. Finally, he opened his eyes.

  He lay against the limp silksheen fabric of die balloon, and hail interspersed with fat snowflakes was falling. Already, the hillside was blanketed in a thin layer of white.

  *Dayala…*

  The fragile thread of order remained, but so weakly that Justen could barely sense it as he struggled into a sitting position. His left leg throbbed, and white flashes of pain pulsed through his skull. His back and ribs ached each time he took a breath.

  As he rolled onto his side to try to stand, his trembling hands slipped on a pile of hailstones that had collected next to the wreckage of the balloon.

  Half-propping himself on the crushed wicker of the balloon basket, wicker half-coated with ice, he levered himself upright and began to struggle along the hillside. He half-walked, half-dragged, his injured leg, lacking the order-strength with which to repair the damage.

  After less than a dozen steps, Justen stopped, his breath ragged as he saw the young face on the ground, partly hidden by the snow. Dark splotches ran across one cheek, almost touching the sightless eyes.

  Martan sprawled beside the heap of charcoal that had been the stolen mount, his left side blackened, a charred arm flung across his chest, the rough blackness of his burns merging with the smooth black of his tunic, the tunic of which he had been so proud.

  Justen’s eyes watered. Another loyal person, another death.

  Another Yonada, another Dyessa, another Clerve, another Krytella, even another Iron Guard. Do the bodies just gather around me?

  He took a deep breath and continued dragging himself toward the heap of darkened rocks that were barely visible under the white coating of snow and hail, fearful of what he might find, but chaos and order-blind from the twisting of nature itself, unable to sense whether or not his brother lived.

  Gunnar lay on the side of the hill, half inside, half out, of the rock-and-armor-plate shelter. Justen scrambled to the still form, then took another deep breath as he saw his brother’s chest rise and fall, rise and fall. For a moment, he paused, his breath still ragged, his ribs aching with each gasping intake of air.

  Dark clouds, darker than any Justen had ever seen, rolled across the sky. Even as he watched, lines of lightning forked and smashed into the churned and melted valley that had been Fairhaven the Mighty.

  Despite the thickening snow, Justen could see that the White tower had melted like a wax candle in the hot sun. No structure stood in what had been the White City. Lines of white radiated from where he stood, lines where the light-sword had boiled away all vegetation and cleft the soil down to white rock.

  Between those lashes of the second sun lay only ashes, ashes and melted lumps of stone, some of them white, some of them brown, but most of them blackened as if mixed with dark ashes before solidifying.

  The snowflakes that fell past Justen were gray, and the mixture of ashes and snow and hail .was gray, and his soul was gray.

  He looked down at Gunnar, at his brother’s chest rising and falling, rising and falling. Then he began the arduous trek back to the Demon, lying just at the edge of the glassy slag that had been a hillside meadow. Gunnar and he needed food, and blankets, and rest.

  If someone found them, so be it.

  Craccckk!

  A long, jagged line of white slashed from the dark clouds, branching and twisting downward into the melted stone and collapsed masonry that had been the White City. The blaze of. the lightning through the snow reminded Justen of just how unlikely it was that anyone would be searching for them at any time soon.

  He laughed once, harshly. As if there were anyone who had survived, save he and Gunnar-and perhaps a dozen White Wizards locked in order-chaos beneath the abattoir that had been a proud city.

  Justen took a step… and rested… and stepped… and rested. But he kept moving. Gunnar needed warmth. He did not look at the charred heap that had been Martan. Nor at the charred and molten destruction that had been the jewel of Candar.

  He put one foot forward, then the other.

  Gunnar… Dayala…

  Gunnar… Dayala…

  Justen kept moving… moving…

  CLII

  The four druids stood before the ancient, watching the sand shift and boil, watching as in places the outlines of the coasts changed.

  The youngest druid wept silently, wracked with soundless sobs. In time, another held her as the sands continued to shift and boil, until the sand table showed the rebalancing of Candar and Recluce.

  “Fairhaven is no more,” announced the ancient. “The second sun of the Angels has been sheathed.”

  “But… the cost?” asked Syodra.

  “There is always a cost. None have paid the price in generations, and a price deferred is always greater. Most of the towers in eastern Candar have been toppled. Rivers have changed their paths. Half of the engineers’ city has been swept into the Eastern Ocean.”

  “And the steam-chaos engines no longer work,” added Frysa.

  “They failed to listen to the songs,” added the sole male. “Or to their souls.‘” ’It will take much time for the reservoir of order to rise to its past level-if the Blacks choose to follow that course. As they will in time, for little in wisdom passes from one generation to the next.“ The ancient nodded to the others and then toward the youngest. ”You, and he, have done well,“

  “Why… ?” Dayala swallowed. “He felt… feels so much of the pain.”

  “That is why you are tied.”

  “But how can he return here… after what he has done?”

  “Child, he will return to you. Trust the Balance.”

  “Trust the Balance?” Dayala laughed, and the laugh was hard and brittle.

  CLIII

  Neither Justen nor Gunnar had spoken more than monosyllables since pulling themselves from beneath their blankets and brushing away the damp snow.

  Justen drank cold juice and chewed the last fragments of crust between bites of hard yellow cheese. His leg remained tender, but the order-chaos balance he had created with Dayala’s help had held, and the leg had begun to knit.

  “What did you do to the last Whites-the ones you didn’t burn with that horrible light-knife?” Gunnar took the jug from Justen, not meeting his eyes, and swallowed some of the juice.

  “They’re… trapped in chaos, inside order… somewhere under Fairhaven.” Justen shuddered. Death… had they deserved that? Perhaps. But does anyone deserve to be locked in chaos within a block of order? He still recalled one face, the one with the slight scar on the forehead and the look of a suffering angel. He had no illusions that all White Wizards were evil or, especially considering himself, that all Blacks- or Grays-were good.

  “They’re alive…still?”

  “In a way.”

  “Could they escape?”

  “I don’t know. Not physically.” Justen shuddered again. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. They might possess… an unwary soul.”

  Gunnar shivered and drew the blanket around himself, seated on still another blanket insulating him from the patch of browned grass where they sat amid slagged and frozen stone. The Weather Wizard fixed his eyes on a pile of hail yet covered with snow, although the morning sun had already melted much of the unseasonal covering, leaving the ground a whitish gray-and-brown blotchwork. The weather mage’s eyes did not turn to his younger brother. “You folded order and chaos together. No one’s ever done that, not both black and white together but separate. That was true gray magic.” But he still did not look at Justen.

  “That was what I learned in Naclos.” Justen finished the bread he had been eating.

  “I can barely touch the winds.” Gunnar finally turned toward his brother. “What exactly did you do?”

  “Destroyed about half of the order and chaos in the world, maybe more. That’s why those last explosions were so violent.”

  “Justen. You knew that’s what would happen, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

&n
bsp; “And you didn’t tell me? I don’t like being deceived, even for the best of reasons, even by my own brother.” Gunnar swallowed.

  “But…” Justen stopped as he felt the anger, and the rejection, from Gunnar. Hadn’t he made it clear?

  He looked back across the valley to where the corpse of Fairhaven lay melted under the partial blanket of snow, melted like a wax model under a hot sun-melted so quickly. Under the glasslike melted structures, under the covering of ash, under the ruins that had disintegrated so swiftly that pockets of chaos were trapped in heat-ordered rubble, how many innocents had died? Had it been fair? And yet, what else could have been done?

  The people of Fairhaven had accepted the rule of chaos. Did that make it right? Justen shook his head. Who had been there to protest when Sarron had been shaken into rubble? Or Berlitos burned into ashes? Or the outskirts of Armat boiled alive?

  But his mouth still tasted like ashes.

  And how long would it be before the destruction was erased, before the white scars that slashed through the soil and into the bones of the earth were covered over? How long before the screams stopped echoing from the rocks and the melted buildings? How long before the trees and plants grew straight and true?

  “Justen?” asked Gunnar harshly.

  “I thought you knew…”

  “None of us knew, really knew, dear brother.” Gunnar slowly stood. “If the rest of the world looks anything like this, it will be a long winter, and then some. Creslin had nothing on you. Blood followed both of you, but at least he used a blade. Oh, I forgot. You did, too. The most violent blade in history.”

  “I…” Justen did not finish the sentence. What could he really say? Gunnar was right.

  “Not even the demons of light or the Angels could have done better. I must give you that, Justen.” Gunnar fumbled with the pack Justen had brought the night before. “There are so many lost souls screaming that I cannot stay here any longer. Not for one instant.” He slung the pack on his shoulders. “If there are any ships left afloat, I’ll find one in Lydiar. Good-bye, Justen.”