L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“…doesn’t know? He always knows…”

“You want to tell him?”

The riders did not stop and look under the bridge, as Kharl would have done. He wondered why. Did they not think of it? Or did they want to cover as much ground as they could before the storm struck?

Kharl and Jeka continued to wait, amid more gusts of wind, and a pattering of rain that came, then went. In time, the pair of riders returned, the hoofs of their mounts echoing on the paving stones of the span above.

“…didn’t go this way…miller was out, and he would have seen them…”

“…tomorrow…maybe…”

So Vetrad was out? Kharl took a deep breath. That meant they’d have to take the way along the creek.

He waited for a time, then crawled up the steep slope and, crouching beside the stone restraining wall of the bridge, studied Angle Road. It was empty. “Come on,” he called down to Jeka.

He waited until she reached him.

“We’ll cross the road. Looks like a path along the creek there on the other side. Just about a half kay…”

“You said that a kay ago…” Jeka attempted a smile.

“Suppose I did.”

The path was overgrown and narrow, but it was also mostly shaded by weedy trees, interspersed with an occasional oak and, surprisingly, at one spot, an ancient black lorken. Another pattering of rain on the leaves overhead came and went, and a series of deeper thunderclaps rumbled overhead.

Finally, Kharl could see the stones of the lower spillway of Vetrad’s millrace. “We’re almost here. Through the berry bushes, and across the narrow meadow to the tall barn.”

“I…hope…so…” panted Jeka.

They stopped at the edge of the berry bushes, stripped of every last berry. The meadow looked empty. An even deeper thunder roll rumbled over them, and the rain began to fall. The first raindrops were fat-and far apart. They hit the ground or the meadow grass slowly, then splattered.

Kharl had not taken four steps when Jeka’s legs gave way, and she sprawled out full length on tannish meadow grass. He turned, then scooped her up. He was amazed at how light she was, even as tired as he felt.

“Can’t carry me…”

“It’s not far.”

From his times of scouting out Vetrad’s stocks, Kharl knew that all the barn doors would be locked, but that the rear door facing the small orchard at the edge of the meadow was low enough, with a gap above it, that they could scramble through. Vetrad wasn’t worried about people. He just didn’t want them taking his timbers and billets, and the doors and locks were more than enough for that. Even so, by the time they huddled under the overhang by the small door, the rumble of thunder was all around them. A bolt of lightning struck somewhere on the ridge to the east of the millpond, so close and so loud that Kharl’s ears rang.

“You just wait here,” he told Jeka.

“Where are you going?”

“Saw some pearapples on the trees. Looked near ripe, and no one’s going to be looking now. Won’t be long.” Kharl hurried back into the storm.

There was more wind than rain, although his ragged cloak was still damp when he returned with almost a half score of pearapples.

“Door’s locked,” Jeka said dully.

“Look up.” Kharl picked Jeka up and lifted her so that she could scramble through the opening above the doorframe. Then he tucked the fruits into his trousers as best he could and jumped, catching the edge and slowly levering himself up. Going down was easier.

Jeka stood waiting in the dimness.

“This way,” he said, leading her along the wide space between the stacks of rough timbers, until they reached the ladder to the oak lofts. “Up there.”

Once he reached the top of the ladder, Kharl led them along the catwalk to the left and to the space just under the eaves behind the last row of red oak billets. Kharl hadn’t remembered it as that large, but compared to where they had been sleeping, it was spacious, a good five cubits by five, although it was only three in height. “No one comes here. Too dry to cure the oak properly. Dries too fast, uneven.”

Jeka sank onto one of the planks, covered in shavings, sitting there.

“They should clean out the billet shavings, but they never have. It’s not as hard as it looks.” Kharl extended a pearapple. “Eat. There’s a place where we can get water, if the rain keeps up.”

“Don’t feel the wizard at all,” Jeka said after several bites of the fruit.

“Not at all?” questioned the cooper as he finished his own pearapple, far better than the poor apples that had begun the day.

“Nah…” She cocked her head to the side, gaminelike. “Not since it really started raining.”

Kharl frowned. Rain? Could rain do that? Running water was supposed to slow wizards. He wasn’t sure that it did, but what was rain but water running down from the skies?

“Feels good.” Jeka yawned. “Can we go back tomorrow?”

“We’ll see.” Kharl found himself yawning.

Later, as the rain streamed down, coming off the roof of the lumber barn in thin sheets, for the first time in days, Kharl fell asleep immediately.

The journey back into Brysta proper was far easier than their flight-except that Jeka had been right about the effect of so much fruit on Kharl, and that had slowed their travel. By late afternoon, they had reached the upper cross streets of Brysta. Kharl insisted on observing his cooperage from a distance. While there was no guard, and the proclamation had been taken down, it was boarded shut.

Somewhat later, they had reached the White Pony, where Jeka used some of Kharl’s coppers to buy them some fowl and bread. After eating, and visiting the fountain, they had made their way back to Jeka’s place. Along the way, Kharl had checked the harbor, but none of the vessels he knew had ported. There had also been no trace or sign of the white wizard, and that bothered Kharl almost as much as if the wizard and his men had been chasing Jeka.

Still…she could use the respite, and Kharl had no doubts that sooner or later the wizard would show up once more, although he had to admit to himself that he didn’t understand why he felt that way.

While Jeka dozed in her hidey-hole, in the space between the walls, under the inadequate roof, in the last light of day, Kharl leafed through the blackstaffer’s book, trying to find something that would give him some insight into what had happened with the wizard.

…the greater the effort to concentrate order within material objects, the greater the amount of free chaos within the world…

What in light was free chaos? He turned another few pages.

…all that is, everything that exists, is little more than the twisting of chaos in a shell of order, and the greater the complexity of those twistings, the more solid the object appears. A thumb of lead or gold may appear more solid than a feather or a flower, and may indeed overbalance the scales, yet there is no difference in the fashion in which they are constructed…

He kept turning the pages, reading a phrase here, a sentence there.

…the form of everything under the sun is determined by the amount of order and chaos and the way in which they are combined and intertwined…

After more than a glass of turning pages, he had found all too many incomprehensible phrases. He turned yet another page, stopping and rereading it.

Water is of both chaos and order, yet it is order, and represents order, for its structure overweighs its parts…

Kharl rubbed his forehead. How could water have parts? Water was. You could boil it or freeze it, and it changed to steam or ice, but it was still water. He took a deep breath and kept reading.

Because water is both order and of order, yet comprised of parts that are totally chaotic, it challenges chaos with the depth of its order. Truly a river people or a sea people must hold to order or they will be lost. Chaos fares best upon the dry land, and least in a steady rain or snowfall…