L. Modesitt - Ordermaster

After a time, he slit his eyes again to look around him, first uphill to the southwest, then along the road to the south. Everywhere he saw gray-ashes, smoke and ashes, and with the faint breeze came even more strongly the stench of burned flesh, both of men and mounts. The entire front of the hill beyond the northeast road and the flat below were smoldering charnel heaps, and the gray of ashes as fine as dust had settled over everything.

Farther west, the top of the hill shimmered in the afternoon sunlight, shimmered like a mirror, a glassy surface of red and black, a surface created by the chaos blasts of the dead white wizard-or should she have been termed a sorceress?

Kharl had heard of the Legend, and the tales of Megaera, but … those had always just been stories. Who could have believed that such a mighty sorceress had existed in his own time? Or that she had been sent to Austra?

Slowly, he eased the mount along the road toward the ragged column coming from the west along the river road.

When he caught sight of Kharl, the lord-chancellor motioned for the other lancers to halt, then rode alone toward Kharl.

“I’ll meet the lord-chancellor alone,” Kharl said to Demyst.

“Lancers halt! The mage and the lord-chancellor will meet alone.”

Kharl forced himself to take another swallow from the water bottle. The water still tasted like liquid ashes, but he swallowed with a gulp, then put it back in the looped holder above his knee.

Hagen reined up, letting Kharl come the last few rods to him. The mage eased the gelding to a halt a rod or so from the lord-chancellor.

“Ser Kharl … What … what did …?” Hagen could not finish the question.

“What was necessary.” Kharl’s voice was flat. “Both the white wizards are dead. From their own chaos.” He closed his eyes. Talking intensified the sight-daggers jabbing into his skull.

“That last … it seared everything below the hillcrest-except your squad. We lost a third of ours then. It’s all glass-a hillside of glass.”

“And ashes.” Kharl paused. “We lost more than that. We lost all of the lancers in Lord Fergyn’s forces.”

“I see … why few would wish a war with either Hamor or Recluse.”

Kharl offered a weary smile, except the expression was more grimace than smile. “No. That is clear. I am certainly not as great a mage as those of Reduce, and the white wizard could not have been the greatest in Hamor.″

“No. The emperor would not send his greatest,” Hagen agreed.

“Will this end the rebellion?” asked Kharl.

“I would judge so.” Hagen glanced to his right, out across the grayness and devastation. “One can never tell, but all those who led it or were in the councils of the rebels are dead. The lancers and armsmen who followed them are dead.”

Kharl just nodded. Then, a wave of weakness and dizziness swept over him, and he lowered his head until his forehead was almost resting against the gelding’s mane.

“Kharl … are you all right?”

“Be … a while … before … I get my strength … back.” Even those few words seemed to exhaust him, and he sat in the saddle, his eyes closed, trying just to hang on. After several moments, the worst of the dizziness passed, and he gradually straightened.

“Are you sure?” asked Hagen.

“I’ll … be riding … slowly.″ Kharl managed a faint smile.

There is a Balance, too, among those who can master order or chaos. There are few who have the talent and the discipline to claim even minor skills in handling such forces. There are even fewer who can boast of some limited degree of mastery, and fewer still who attain great mastery, especially of order, for mastery of chaos is far easier than the same level of mastery of order …

The balance is this: A mage may have a wide range of skills, but his breadth of skills will limit great skill in one area of mastery. Conversely, a mage may have great mastery in one area, but most limited abilities in others, where lesser mages may in fact show greater skill.

This Balance of mastery, then, must be considered in all things. A greatweather mage may not be able to spur the slightest growth in plants nor heal the simplest cut. A mighty metal mage may not be capable of even sensing when the weather will change.

Yet a possessor of minor order abilities may be able to heal a cut, strengthen the wool of sheep, find the bad pearapples from among the good without touching a one, and always know when the weather will change. But he can do no great mageries, though he can accomplish some magery in all areas where order may be fruitfully used.

That often is the weakness of those of great single magely skills, that they fail to understand that they cannot be great in all areas, and that they may make great errors if they fail to recognize that the Balance applies to them as well as to the relation between order and chaos.

As in all matters of order, chaos, and the affairs of men and women, there is a Balance, and a price to be paid for greatness and great accomplishments.

— The Basis of Order

Kharl slept poorly on fourday night, even though they had not reached the Great House until after sunset, what with the clouds and the downpour that had swept in, seemingly from nowhere, turning the roads into muddy quagmires and extending a journey of perhaps two glasses into one three times that long. By the time he reached his quarters, he was soaked and shivering. Even before the fire in his small hearth, a good glass had passed before he had been warm enough to climb into bed.

Then, after he had dropped off, uneasily, the image of the white sorceress appeared before him, time after time, then vanished in a swirl of chaos and ashes. Twice he woke, drenched in sweat, with every muscle in his body aching. Even in the darkness of his quarters, when he opened his eyes, the sight-daggers jabbed into his skull. In fact, in the darkness it was worse, because each dagger exploded in a flash of light.

Morning was not much better, although a visit to the bath chamber andbreakfast improved his being somewhat. The egg toast only tasted lightly of ashes. The pale ale might have helped as well. Then he went back to his quarters, to rest. Outside the windows of his quarters, the rain continued to fall, almost in sheets at times.

Rest eluded him. Too many thoughts swirled through his skull. Why had the Emperor of Hamor sent a white sorceress? She had been far more powerful than any of the white wizards, and the emperor had risked her on a revolt in Austra? Did Hamor have that many whites so powerful? Or had she been a danger to the emperor? Every time Kharl thought he had learned something, he found that there was so much more he did not know.

So far as Kharl knew, how he had applied order had seemed straightforward. He’d read from The Basis of Order , then tried to work things out. Some things hadn’t worked. Some had, but had almost prostrated him, or worse, and one or two others had worked well. In most magely things, Kharl had just been middling, and only good in a few. That was life. The same had been true when he’d just been a simple cooper.

“Ser Kharl?”

Even without much effort, Kharl could sense the blackness of Lyras beyond the door. His order-senses were sharper than ever, but that sharpness was so clear that it was almost painful. He did not want to think about what it might feel like to deal with another white wizard.

“Come in, Lyras. It’s unbolted. Unbarred, too.”

Lyras, in the browns he always wore, opened the door and stepped inside.

Kharl motioned to the other chair and watched as Lyras seated himself.

“You’re feeling better?” asked Lyras.