L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

He shook his head. The Prefect’s enumerator and Egen were the same sort, wanting things their own way and vindictive when they were thwarted. Did having power turn people that way?

Kharl laughed. It wasn’t as though he’d ever be tempted in that fashion. Coopers and carpenters never got that kind of power.

Another five days passed before the Seastag made her way into the port at Diehl, the most sheltered harbor that Kharl had seen. A forested peninsula guarded the seaward approach, looming over the deep channel that was less than two kays wide at the harbor entrance. Once past the entry, the Seastag steamed almost due west through a bay more than thirty kays wide, and from the half day that it took to reach the actual port, more than fifty kays in length. Only the Great North Bay at Lydiar had been larger, almost an inland sea, as Kharl recalled.

Kharl had been assigned the morning deck watch the day after the ship had arrived, and Hagen had appeared almost as soon as the carpenter had taken his station on the quarterdeck, opposite the still-empty pier.

“We’ve got the copper to off-load and some of the woolens we picked up in Nylan. Expect their port-mistress anytime, or one of the assistants. Just give me a call or ring the bell twice. I don’t need to tell you, but be exceedingly polite.” With a nod, Hagen had turned and returned to his cabin, leaving Kharl on the deck under high clouds, on the warmest morning Kharl had experienced in eightdays.

As Bemyr supervised the deck crew’s removal of both hatch covers, Kharl studied the port and the land beyond. Diehl itself was the smallest port town Kharl had seen, not that he had seen many, with only two warehouses behind the port-mistress’s structure at the foot of the single pier-a structure of old and heavy timber supported by equally old and massive stone columns. The Seastag was the only vessel tied at a pier large enough for two ocean traders.

The water in the bay was a warm blue, unlike the late-autumn dark blue of the Eastern Ocean or the harbor waters at the Candarian towns and cities where the Seastag had previously ported, and the air was warmer-and moister. Beyond the port area, everything was green-differing shades of green in a canopy of trees that stretched to the horizon in every direction where there was land.

A glass passed before a silver-haired woman walked down the pier toward the Seastag . Kharl had not seen her appear, but he almost nodded to himself, thinking that the port-mistress would probably be older. But as the woman neared, he could see from the unlined face and slender figure that the woman was anything but old. He’d heard that druids were silver-haired, but the druid approaching the ship was the first he had ever seen. He continued to watch, even as he stepped forward to greet her. The silver-haired figure walked up the gangway with a grace that looked youthful and had to be mature. That Kharl knew. Women were almost always the graceful ones, while girls betrayed their age through a myriad of little traits, including a touch of uneasiness and awkwardness with their movements.

“Greetings,” Kharl offered, inclining his head. “Are you here about the cargo?”

The druid studied Kharl before finally speaking. “You are not from Recluce.”

“No. I’m from Brysta.” Kharl almost stepped back from her, so strong was the feeling of her presence…and a swirling linkage of both the whiteness-except it was unlike any whiteness he had sensed before-and a deeper blackness, although that seemed more like what he had felt from the mage in Nylan.

She paused. “Will you be here long?”

“The ship? The captain decides that. We have to off-load cargo, for you. Let me summon him. He wanted to know as soon as you arrived.”

“No…not yet. I will be back with those for the cargoes.” She turned and walked back down the gangway.

Kharl frowned, wondering what he had done wrong-or if he had.

“Carpenter? What did you say to her?” Furwyl crossed the deck.

“I asked if she were the one we had cargo for, and…she didn’t say, now that I think about it. Then, she asked how long we would be here, and I said that it was up to the captain, but that we would be here until we off-loaded. She said that she would be back with those for the cargo.”

At the last words, Furwyl relaxed. “If she said that, she’ll be back. They never tell lies.” He frowned. “I wonder why she came aboard. Haven’t seen that one before.”

“She had deep green eyes,” Kharl said, not knowing quite why he did.

“You leave them alone,” the first mate said, “if you value your life and health. Unless, of course, they ask you. Then, I hear, you’re a lucky fellow.”

Kharl understood. He’d felt the power in the woman, a strange sort of power, an intertwining of golden whiteness with deep blackness.

“I’ll tell the captain that they know we’re here.”

“Yes, ser.” Kharl looked down the pier, but the druid had vanished.

At least another glass passed. Kharl was looking forward to being relieved when noon came. When he scanned the pier, he saw two druids, both with silver hair, walking down the pier toward the ship, accompanied by another figure, a man in gray, with light brown hair.

Furwyl was at the gangway almost instantly, followed by the captain. Kharl stood back, behind them.

The first druid up the gangway was not the one Kharl had met. She was shorter, with amber eyes, and she turned directly to Hagen. “Captain.”

“Port-mistress…I had heard your assistant was here…I hope…we did not offend…”

The druid laughed, the sound warm. “If anything…I am her assistant. Dayala is one of the…she is of the Great Forest. She told me that your watcher”-she glanced to Kharl-“was most well-mannered, and she came to tell me that you bore our cargo. Would you mind if she and her consort have a few words with him?”

“Has he…?”

“No,” answered the druid Kharl had first met. “He is a most honest man. But he was injured, and we would like to see if we could aid him.”

“By all means.” Hagen bowed his head.

“We will talk of cargoes while they talk to your man,” suggested the port-mistress.

The brown-haired man, Kharl realized, was also a druid, with the same interweaving of order and chaos, and he motioned toward the bow. Kharl followed the two up the ladder and forward until the three stood beside the bowsprit.

The man smiled politely. “Dayala said that you’re from Brysta.”

“I am. Are you?” Kharl asked politely.

“No, and it doesn’t matter, not really. I’m from Wandernaught, but you reminded her of someone I used to know.” The druid shrugged.

Kharl could sense clearly the coiled power in the man, power that made the white wizard he had killed seem less than a summer mist in comparison. “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

The other laughed. “We have not, and I doubt we’ll ever meet again. But one never knows. If you don’t mind, would you answer a few questions?”

“I suppose so.” Kharl was wary.

“Justen…he still suffers from the injuries to his ribs. We should help there first,” suggested Dayala.

Justen shook his head, then laughed, before speaking. “She has the right of it. She usually does. I trust you won’t mind if we repair the rib that hasn’t begun to heal right?”

One of his ribs wasn’t healing right?

“It was broken inside, and there’s…” The man frowned. “Let’s just say that if you got hit again there, you might not live through it.”

“You can do that? Without cutting into me?”

“It will not hurt,” said Dayala.

“Why…would you…”