L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Kharl sipped the ale, far better than any he could recall. Then, that might have been because it had been so long since he’d had good ale. As he took a second swallow, he thought over the servingwoman’s questions. There was some sort of honest misunderstanding, he knew, and it centered on the staff. Did she think he was a blackstaffer, being sent out?

Jenevra had been young, but the woman hadn’t seemed surprised at all. Did that mean that the Brethren or whoever ruled Recluce could send people out as blackstaffers at any age? He frowned. He should have asked more questions of Trelyn, but he just hadn’t thought of them. He’d always been like that, not fully understanding things until much later, if then. That didn’t seem to have changed. He took another sip of the ale, enjoying it.

When the server returned with his meal, set on a new-looking crockery platter, accompanied by a small basket of bread as well, she slipped six coppers onto the table.

“Thank you.” Kharl left two coppers on the table. He hadn’t even thought about coinage. He’d just discovered that silvers converted one for one, but coppers? Who knew? He supposed Tarkyn or the captain did, but he thought he ought to find out, before he ordered anything in Lydiar or anyplace else. He wasn’t so sure the Lydians would be as accommodating as people in Recluce.

As the woman had promised, the fish was good-light and flaky under the crisp golden batter, and the potatoes were rich and filling, the pearapples a pleasing combination of tart and sweet. He left nothing-except the coppers.

When he stood to leave, the server smiled from across the room. “Best of fortune.”

“Thank you.”

Kharl didn’t want to return to the ship, not immediately. So he kept walking. In time, he came to a square, except it wasn’t a square, but a park, with trimmed hedges, and yellow and orange flowers, and stone walks amid the green grass, grass that was trimmed short. The trees were all evergreens, some of types Kharl had never seen. He stood on the street side of the black stone wall and watched as two boys and a girl played some sort of tag, with two adults looking on from a nearby stone bench.

After a time, he walked farther downhill toward the piers on the western side of the harbor. He was curious, because even with the sun about to set, and the light falling across the westernmost set of piers, a sort of shadow lay across them. Kharl could not make out any of the vessels, although he could see the ships at the other piers clearly, and there were no clouds in the sky.

When he neared the piers, he discovered several things. First, the street ended at a black stone wall, with a guard post in front of the open iron gate manned by two soldiers or marines in black uniforms. Second, the guards had weapons in racks that had to be rifles. He looked again. No, they weren’t rifles, exactly, and their barrels were far too large. Third, he could see through the gate the late-day sunlight falling on the piers, yet there was a darkness that blocked any view of the ships.

Kharl knew that there was at least one vessel there; he could almost sense its solidity, but no masts extended above the ten-cubit-high wall. He immediately turned east, because the cross street in front of the piers also ended just to the west, with another black stone wall. He could sense the guards watching him, and he did not look back until the black wall ended-or rather made a right-angle turn harborward. He walked on another fifty cubits before turning.

The way the walls were set, there was no way to see what might be tied at the pier behind the walls, but whatever was tied there did not have masts that extended very high.

The guards and the walls suggested that this section of the harbor held the dreaded warships of Recluce, but if such warships were so fearsome, why were they being hidden? Was there something about them that the rulers of Recluce did not wish known? After a moment, he shrugged and continued walking along the edge of the harbor.

When he finally returned to the ship, after looking at shops, vessels from Hamor and Candar, as well as from Nordla and Austra, it was well into evening.

He took the staff back down to the carpenter shop. For the first time in days, Tarkyn wasn’t there. Kharl replaced the staff in the bin and headed back toward the forecastle. He slowed as he passed the women’s crew quarters, hearing voices ahead, then stopped just outside the hatch.

“…tell you…something strange about him…”

“…imagining things…”

“…wasn’t imagining…he’s walking down the street, and two of those creepy types in black…they greet him…like he’s one of ’em…”

“So? He works hard…doesn’t slack, and keeps his mouth shut…”

“…tell you…strange…”

“…worry too much, Asolf…you drank too much, too. Get some shut-eye…

“…tell you…”

“Sleep it off.”

Kharl waited quietly for a time before entering the forecastle. When he did step in and begin to ready himself for sleep, both Asolf and whomever he had been talking to were asleep, as were about half the crew-those that were aboard.

Kharl lay back on the thin mattress, thinking. How could he discover how he might be more than just a cooper? By further reading of The Basis of Order ? By looking more deeply into things?

After a time, he drifted into sleep.

Is there a source-a wellspring-of order or of chaos? Can something exist without a source? And if there be such, what is indeed the wellspring of chaos? Or that of order? There is but one, for chaos can be said to be the wellspring of order, and order the wellspring of chaos. These are so because, for so long as there is life, neither chaos nor order can exist by itself for long without the other.

Yet for so long as there have been peoples upon the face of the world, there have been those who championed order over chaos, or chaos over order. There have been those who denied the power of one, or of both. All creatures that live are born, and birth is the triumph of life. All creatures, from the largest to the smallest, are brought low by death, and death is the triumph of chaos.

If all things that have been born were never to die, within generations the very earth would be filled until none could move, and there would not be enough sustenance for all. If nothing were to be born, there would be no towns or roads, no grasses upon the ground, no fishes in the sea, and all would be desolation…

How can one say, then, that chaos is greater, or that order is?

— The Basis of Order

After breakfast, before he headed down to the carpenter shop once more, Kharl glanced forward as he stood on the main deck, pitching but slightly. In all directions, he could only see the gray-blue waters of the Northern Ocean. Or they might be sailing the Gulf of Candar by now. He’d asked Furwyl, but the first said he wouldn’t know if they were actually in the Gulf until he took his noon sightings. The unseen border between the two varied with every map, in any case, Furwyl had pointed out.

Just another thing that he’d thought was more certain than it was, Kharl reflected as he headed down to the carpenter shop. He stepped inside to find Tarkyn working on his scrimshaw.

“I see that staff is still in the bin,” offered the older man.

“I tried to give it back.” Kharl shrugged. “The magister wouldn’t take it.”

“He say why?”

“He said it was mine now, and that I should take care of it.”

“Might see a little use, if we’re unlucky. Not like it once was. Not like twenty years ago, when there were pirates everywhere,” mused Tarkyn. “Nowdays, only have to worry when you’re close to shore near Renklaar or Jera…maybe Biehl and Quend.”