L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

“There were that many pirates? I thought Recluce had always taken care of them.”

“Not just Recluce. The white wizards of Fairven hated pirates as well. That one thing they agreed upon, and before the cataclysm, there were few pirates indeed, and most of them did not last long. After the cataclysm…then there were many.”

“After the fall of Fairven?” asked Kharl. “I didn’t realize that was a cataclysm.”

“Aye, that it was.” Tarkyn set down the scrimshaw on the narrow bench built into the bulkhead. “Great waves swept out of the ocean and smashed into the harbors. Wasn’t a war fleet anywhere that survived, not even the ships of Recluce. I heard tell that even the black iron of their mages is not so strong now as then. Many of the steam engines that once worked did no longer, and those that did had not the power they once had…” The carpenter coughed and cleared his throat. “My grandsire once said that the ships of Recluce were of black iron and more than two hundred cubits in length, and moved twice as fast as a horse at full gallop. Now…they are swift, but not that swift, and little more than half that in length.”

“They don’t let people see them in Nylan.”

“Don’t let folk close anywhere. Still mighty ships. Saw one take down a Delapran pirate once. Like a shark half out of water she moved. Shells, something that looked like a cannon but wasn’t. Couldn’t have been half a glass before the pirate was sinking in flames from stem to stern. No…one thing a skipper doesn’t want to do is offend Recluce. Even worse than offending the Hamorians, for all their ships and guns. Upset the blacks, and you won’t have a ship for long, that’s certain. That’s why the pirates are few, and why they stay close to shore. At times, makes you wish for the old times, when there were almost none.”

“Does anyone know what caused the cataclysm? Fairven is…it was…somewhere in the middle of Candar. How could its fall cause great waves?”

Tarkyn laughed. “Folks have wondered that for years. Pride…that’s what it was. Ever since Cerryl the Great, the white mages got more and more sure of themselves. Cocky. First, they took over Certis, and Hydlen, and then Gallos. Before anyone knew it, they held all of Candar east of the Westhorns.” He snorted. “Was that enough? No…they started building a great road through the Westhorns, so as they could march their white lancers right into Sarronnyn.”

Kharl hadn’t heard that part of the story. “What happened?”

“Recluce sent some black mages. They were proud, too. Thought a few troopers and mages ’d be more than enough to stop Fairven. They weren’t. The whites smashed ’em and the Tyrant of Sarronnyn. Whites had all of Candar under their thumbs, except the Great Forest, Delapra, and Southwind. Might have gotten them, too, except that something happened.” Tarkyn smiled, as if inviting Kharl to ask.

“What?”

“Fairven fell in a single afternoon. No one knows how. Some say mages from Recluce. The one-god believers claim their god leveled it with thunderbolts. Others say the very earth revolted. One thing’s sure. Something melted most of the buildings-and they were stone-like they were wax in a furnace. Nothing grows there, and anyone who goes there these days doesn’t come back. Some of the hilltops are like black glass. Heard of a fellow who climbed one. Days later, his hair fell out, got sores all over. Two eightdays later he was dead.”

“I still don’t see how that caused great waves in the oceans.”

“Who knows? One thing certain though. The land moved. Some of the roads-the old stone roads…in places, they’re just split. Other places, the mountains fell on them, buried ’em and anyone who was traveling ’em them.”

Kharl shook his head. “It’s still hard to believe. They ruled forever, and then, in one day, they were gone.”

“Like a mighty ship on the ocean,” said Tarkyn. “Proud, with sails billowing, engine pourin’ out smoke. No one checks the hull. Shipworms…can’t see ’em until it’s too late. A storm, and the hull gives in, and the ship sinks, just like that. Lands are like ships. Don’t see the worms till it’s too late.” The carpenter glanced at the lathe. “We could use another top gaff.”

Kharl nodded. “Spruce?”

“You don’t want oak that high…”

Kharl stepped toward the overhead wood bin, but he was still thinking about lands being like ships with shipworms. Was Nordla like that? Or Recluce? How would you ever know…until it was too late?

Another day passed before the Seastag sailed into the Great North Bay of Lydiar, barely past dawn. The bay was far larger than the harbor at Nylan or at Brysta. That was clear from the moment the Seastag passed through the straits formed by the two peninsulas of dark rock separated by more than thirty kays of water. Kharl had to take the second’s word that the second peninsula was there, some twenty kays north. Once past the straits, there was no other sign of land, just gray water sparkling in the sunlight.

It took most of the day before the Seastag neared the city of Lydiar, on the southwestern end of the bay. Only then, in late afternoon and perhaps five kays offshore, did Hagen order the sails furled and the engine fired up. A pilot boat appeared as the ship neared the outermost pier, off-loading a pilot who climbed aboard and up to the poop without a word to anyone.

As the pilot directed the Seastag toward one of the longer and sturdier piers near the northern edge of the hodgepodge of wharfs and piers, Kharl stood with the deck crew on the main deck. He watched, because the only thing Bemyr ever used him for was on the capstan or the winch. That was doubtless wise, because Kharl didn’t know that much about other deck duties.

“Ten to port!” ordered the pilot, his voice carrying with the wind to the main deck.

The thwupping of the paddle wheels slowed as the ship neared the northernmost pier.

Most of the city was set on a low plateau above the bay, but there were buildings and dwellings on the slope that led down to the water. Lydiar had clearly grown haphazardly over the years, because Kharl couldn’t make out a single straight street of any length, and the roofs and walls were of all of different colors, but worn and muted, and all beginning to gray.

“See that pile of grayish white rock on the middle of the hillside there, straight back? Right overlooking the harbor?” asked Bemyr.

“It looks like it was once something,” Kharl replied.

“Aye. It was. Used to be the stronghold of the Duke of Lydiar, more ’n eight hundred years back. Maybe longer. Say that the mage Creslin-supposedly founded Recluce-he destroyed it in an afternoon with lightnings from the sky.”

Did the mages from Recluce like afternoons? Or was that just the way the stories came down? “They never rebuilt it?”

“Nope. Wondered that myself. Maybe ’cause it was built by wizards and destroyed by other wizards. Wizards, they’re the wellspring of chaos.”

“There hasn’t been anything like that lately, has there?”

“Not since the fall of Fairven, leastwise.” The bosun stepped away, moving toward the first mate, who had beckoned to Bemyr.

Kharl looked back at the harbor. There appeared to be more piers at Lydiar than at Nylan, but that might have been because, compared to the spareness and order of the harbor at Nylan, Lydiar was haphazard and disorganized, with piers of all sizes and shapes jutting out from land in no recognizable order, neither by length, nor width, nor depth of water. All the piers were of grayed timber, but some were of heavy construction, with massive circular posts and bollards, and others looked so spindly that they could well fall to the next storm. Next to the spindly piers were smaller vessels, skiffs, fishing craft, and some that Kharl could not identify. The larger piers held oceangoing vessels and coasters, several of them sloop-rigged and without stacks.