L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Kharl took the largest bun, easily the size of a small loaf. “Thank you.”

She smiled a last time before continuing onward.

Kharl found that it took him little time to eat the entire bun. As he finished, he licked his fingers and wished he had an ale, but all he had seen on the road nearby were dwellings.

Several thoughts crossed his mind. First, he wondered about the woman with her daughter. The patrollers in Southport had spoken a version of Brystan, or perhaps Brystan was a version of what the patrollers spoke…but the woman had not. Was another language spoken in Southport? Or did the patrollers at the port know two tongues? He hadn’t thought about it, but he certainly should have.

The second thought was more troubling. Why was he climbing up the road? He’d started out just to look around, but he had found himself almost compelled to continue uphill. Why? He studied the road and the dwellings, their neatly tended gardens and orchards that had already fruited and been picked, with the trees’ leaves graying for winter.

There was a pull of some sort. Not exactly like the white mist or the blackness of Nylan, but similar, and it seemed to be coming from somewhere slightly uphill and to the east. After a moment, Kharl shook his head and resumed walking. After another hundred cubits, he found his feet turning right onto a lane that wound away from the main road. The lane turned more to the east and, after several hundred rods, passed through two stone posts, half-buried in berry bushes and set nearly fifty cubits apart.

Ahead was a much larger mound-one that was a least three hundred cubits in length and fifty high. It had no trees upon it, just low bushes and tall grasses. Kharl stopped well short of where the foot-trod path came to a gradual end in browning grass and blotted his forehead. All the walking had left him warmer than he had anticipated.

There was a sense of sadness, of ancient sorrow, emanating from the mound, and the feeling of attraction had subsided. Kharl kept looking, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. He could only sense a diffuse and ancient chaos emanating from the mound, and that chaos was subtly but clearly different from that which he had experienced with the white wizard.

“Well…have you figured it out yet?”

Kharl turned to see a thin white-haired woman, wearing a faded gray tunic trimmed with scarlet, a garment that appeared almost military, yet one that was tailored to her. A miasma of blackness surrounded her, as it had the mage in Nylan.

“I beg your pardon?” he said politely.

“What drew you here, of course.” She pointed to his staff. “That’s the black staff of a beginning mage. Most never make it beyond that. With your age, you’re probably one of them.”

“I’m not a mage. I’m just a ship’s carpenter taking a walk,” he replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting late berries from back there, and, when I feel like it, waiting for folk like you. They all come here, sooner or later.” Her laugh was knowing, but full and almost soft, not the sort of cackle Kharl would have expected from a gaunt white-haired woman with eyes that had seen too much. “It’s the power in the mound. What would you do with it, if you could?”

Kharl thought about denying what he’d sensed, then shrugged. “Nothing. I wouldn’t know where to start. Anyway, it’s the wrong kind of power for me. Could be that any kind is.”

“Power will come to you,” she replied. “Best you think about how you will use it, or it will end up using you.” She turned.

“Is that all you have to say?” Kharl asked.

The woman stopped and half turned. “What else would you have me say?”

“I don’t know…You have a certain power yourself…”

She laughed once more. “Nothing at all, a trifle. When you see true black power, you will understand that. At least, I would hope so. Good day, carpenter.” She turned and walked through the grass and northward into the bushes…and then disappeared.

Kharl just looked for a time, then shook his head. He studied the mound once more, but could find nothing beyond the ancient sadness and strange buried combination of order and chaos. He finally walked back to Hill Road and downhill toward the harbor. When he reached Third Circle, remembering what the harbor patroller had said, he turned southwest, searching for a café or tavern that looked both inviting and not terribly costly.

In the first block he walked along after turning off Hill Road, he passed a goldsmith’s, then a coppersmith’s and a jeweler’s, while on the south side of the street, he could make out a shop window filled with fine cabinetry of all types, and another displaying a gray cloak trimmed in a gold brocade. A tall gray-haired woman in shimmering black trousers, a white shirt, a gray jacket-and the paired shortswords at her belt-nodded as she passed him. An older man, also well dressed, but in a rich dark gray tunic and jacket and without weapons, smiled politely.

Kharl had the definite feeling that, while there might be taverns on Third Circle, his wallet would be far lighter if he stopped in any of them. He decided to walk another block or so before heading down closer to the harbor.

“Carpenter! Ser!”

Kharl turned at the call, because he couldn’t imagine anyone calling him that unless it was someone from the Seastag . He saw a sailor standing beside a patroller outside a shop across the street. In the doorway was a tradesman in a leather vest, gesturing animatedly to the patroller.

Kharl crossed the street and stopped several cubits short of the trio, now standing in front of a narrow window displaying various items crafted from silver. It took a moment for him to recall the sailor’s name. “Yes, Flasyn?”

“Ser…they think I took something…but I didn’t.”

“Wexalt says that your sailor made off with an object from his counter.” The patroller was an older but muscular woman in the same armless blue tunic as those worn by the harbor patrollers. She held a similar truncheon, with the shortswords at her belt, and inclined her head to the tradesman.

Kharl disliked the tradesman on sight, although his face was open and guileless, and he offered an apologetic smile.

“Can’t afford to lose things these days.”

The words were false, genuine as they sounded, and Kharl tried not to show his dislike and skepticism.

“Ser…I didn’t take nothing…I didn’t.”

Kharl looked at the patroller, then at the merchant, who carried the faintest hint of the unseen white chaos. “What is he supposed to have taken?”

“He lifted a silver rose. He must have dropped it when he knew he’d been seen.”

Kharl looked at Flasyn. “Why were you in the silversmith’s shop?”

“Ser…my Berye…she…well…I was lookin’ for something special for her, but he told me to leave, and seein’ as I wasn’t welcome, I left straightaway…”

The man’s words felt true, and Kharl turned to the merchant. “Do you do the silverwork?”

“What sort of…”

“I just wondered. You don’t seem like a silversmith.”

“My brother handles that. I take care of the accounts.”

Kharl nodded, looking more directly at the man. “Did you see Flasyn take this rose?”

“It was missing. No one else was in the shop recently.”

Kharl forced a smile. “That could well be, but that does not mean Flasyn took it, or that anyone did. That’s why I asked if you had seen him take it.” The carpenter fingered his beard. “Can you honestly say you saw this rose in the shop just before Flasyn came in?”

“He’s the thief! You should be questioning him.”

Kharl turned to Flasyn. “Did you touch anything in his shop?”

“No, ser. Couldn’t have. Only things that are out are big stuff, trays.”