L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Rain or snow affected chaos? A faint smile crossed Kharl’s lips.

Even a fog will affect a chaos-wielder, but only those who are of the weaker sort. A steady rain is a patterned fall of ordered chaos. A raindrop is ordered, and the fall of each is unpatterned, chaotic, yet all raindrops falling together results in a pattern ordered by chaos, and that order can weaken or destroy many of the links of power created by those who wield chaos, as the fires of sun itself can weaken those who wield order, if they do not understand that the sun is a furnace of chaos…

The cooper blinked. What did the sun have to do with order and chaos? Like water, it was. It gave warmth and light, and how could those be of chaos? And the sun weakened order? The book implied that a chaos-wielder could affect the sun. How could that be? A wizard could no more affect the sun than…Kharl couldn’t think of a comparison.

After a time, the cooper closed the book and nodded to himself. He did have one answer, but more questions than ever.

On sixday, Kharl was awake with the sun, bright and clear as on the day before, and cool, but without frost. He could see clouds forming out to the west over the open ocean, and there was a brisk wind off the water, promising rain sometime in the afternoon. He thought about reading more from The Basis of Order . He’d had to stop the day before when his mind had finally quit grasping the words, as if there had just been too many new ideas banging around inside his skull-ideas he couldn’t yet connect to each other. There was so much he didn’t know.

What could he do about the wizard? Should he even try? How could he not, when Jeka had been the only one to offer him help and a place to hide? He glanced at his pack, debating whether to take out the book and start once more.

With a sound between a grunt and a groan, Jeka rolled out of her hidey-hole and looked at Kharl. “Need to get us something to eat.”

“You don’t feel the wizard?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll go to the lower market.”

“I can go.”

Jeka shook her head. “No one’d sell cheap or fair to you. No one looks at me. Some folk still watch you. They might tell Egen. You never know.”

She was probably right about that, Kharl thought. “But…if you see or feel the wizard, you stop and come back here. Quick as you can.”

“I can do that. Got some coppers?” The gaminelike urchin grinned.

“Just a few.” Kharl grinned back as he handed her three.

He watched her scramble over the wall, gracefully, wondering if he should have insisted on going himself, but he wanted to try to read more in the book, because he still didn’t know what he could or should do about the white wizard.

After a moment, Kharl took The Basis of Order out from his pack and opened it once more, hoping that the words would make more sense. The first words he read seemed so obvious that he wondered why they were there.

…there is more that lies beneath the surface of anything, whether it be the ocean or the mountains…Do not assume that what lies beneath is the same as what lies above, nor that it is different…

The next words were far from obvious, and meant nothing to him, nothing at all.

In substance, there is no difference between chaos and order, for neither has substance in and of itself…

Nor did many of the pages that followed help much, either. His head began to ache, but he kept reading, doggedly.

Sometime in early afternoon, Jeka climbed back over the wall and dropped down before Kharl. Her face was contorted.

“Hurts…he’s after me…”

“Who? The wizard?”

Jeka nodded. Then she pulled out half a loaf of bread and a small wedge of hard cheese. “I got you this.”

“Have you eaten?” Kharl took the bread and cheese.

“Yes.”

“As much as this?”

“About the same.”

The words rang true, and Kharl began to eat. The headache he had not thought had come from reading began to subside, if slowly. When he had finished, he made his way along the walls and past the crude latrine to retrieve the black staff.

Jeka looked at him as he brought it back. “You want me to touch it?” She shivered.

“It might help.”

Jeka edged forward, then grabbed the staff, suddenly, before Kharl could reach out. Without even a cry or a murmur, her eyes closed; her knees buckled, and she dropped in a heap.

Alarmed, Kharl bent forward, but he could see that she was breathing. He half dragged, half carried her into her sleeping space. When he was certain she was still breathing, and seemed to be sleeping, he eased back away and sat down against the wall.

The staff had some power. That was certain. It could break whatever spell the white wizard laid on Jeka, but the effect didn’t last.

Kharl tried to read more of The Basis of Order, but the words flowed by him without making much sense. Then he stood and stretched, and tried to figure out how he could deal with the wizard-or if he should even try. Then he just sat against the wall.

A good glass passed before Jeka moaned.

Kharl lifted the canvas and peered into the hidey-hole. “You all right?”

“No…my head still hurts.”

He waited for a time, and finally Jeka eased out into the indirect light of a cloudy afternoon, although the only place where rain looked to be falling was offshore.

“Wizard…he’s…bastard like Egen,” she muttered.

Kharl agreed silently. “Do you feel any better?”

“The cord thing is gone. My head hurts.”

Kharl looked at her. “Do you know someone who could tell you where the wizard lives?”

Jeka dropped her eyes.

Kharl waited, but she did not reply.

“You already know? Because that’s where you stole the silver from him?”

“He was kicking a peddler woman…pushing her…she said he hadn’t paid…He was awful mad…served him right.”

“But stealing from a wizard?”

“Told you…didn’t know he was a wizard then. Just thought he was a dandy. Never miss a silver. He was stealin’ from her…didn’t think it was so bad to steal from him…”

“I need to know where he lives.”

“Not all that far from the White Pony, ’cept it’s up the hill and north.”

Kharl glanced to the west. The afternoon rain that was so common in mid-and late fall looked to be moving inshore. He hoped that the coming storm would help conceal Jeka from the wizard. “You’ll have to take me there.”

Jeka looked down. “I’m tired again…don’t know why.”

Kharl gestured in the direction of the wall and the serviceway beyond. “Let’s go. You climb over first.”

Jeka dragged herself to the wall and over it, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. She just stood and watched as Kharl climbed, then descended into the shadowed serviceway.

“You bringing that staff?”

“It might help.”

“Long as no one looks too close,” she replied.

Kharl stayed almost abreast of Jeka as she wound her way through alleys, serviceways, and, occasionally, streets, but they did not stay on the streets long, and only on those streets that seemed crowded. The general direction was eastward. They did stop by a fountain, one that Kharl had not visited before, and drank. The water helped Kharl some, but Jeka looked pale and drawn, more so than earlier.

As they paused in an alley entrance, Kharl glanced at the cross street. Jeka was turning onto one of the older streets in upper Brysta, where large houses had been set within twenty cubits of the street itself, with ancient brick sidewalks, The yellow bricks were worn and, in some places, had been replaced with more reddish bricks. In other spots, there were just muddy gaps. The dwellings remained imposing two- and three-story edifices, but Kharl could sense the feeling of time and wear.