L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Kharl continued toward the next major street. The grayish wooden buildings in the first block gave way to painted structures in the second, and then two- and three-story stone-walled buildings in the third, and then even taller structures, with carved cornices and wide windows above the first floors. Kharl emerged from the side street and turned right once more, glad to find himself on more of a boulevard, where several shops actually had flowers in planters beside their windows.

The second shop on the side of the street away from the harbor held hats-broad-brimmed hats for women. The third shop was a tailor’s, and it displayed jackets and colorful vests, all of silk or light fine cotton, but for men.

Beyond the immaculate shops with their wide glass windows and open archways was a café under a white-and-black-striped awning. Both men and women sat at tables in the shade. Most wore shimmering white, the men in white trousers and boots, and embroidered white shirts with lace and designs in silver, and the women in loose white robes of some light fabric. The women also had filmy white scarfs across their bare shoulders, as if the scarfs would be used as cover or veils when they left the café.

Kharl strained to hear what they said, but realized that they must all have been speaking in Hamorian, because he understood not a word.

In his plain and worn carpenter’s grays, Kharl felt very out of place. He kept walking.

After returning to the Seastag just before sunset on the first day in Swartheld, Kharl thought, and read, then slept less than easily. He dreamed of white wizards in burgundy, in black and orange, and in flowing green-all speaking in languages he did not understand and doing all manner of wizardly tasks he could not have explained, let alone duplicated. He asked them, and they ignored him, as if he did not exist, and went on with their incomprehensible tasks.

He woke early the next morning, pooled in sweat, and not just from the heat and dampness of Swartheld. After deciding that he could not sleep longer, he eased out of his forecastle bunk, and slipped out with his clothes. He washed up as quietly as he could and then made his way topside.

In the gray light before dawn, Kharl stood at the railing near the bow. Even in the open air, there was not so much as a hint of a breeze. A light haze blurred the outlines of the buildings and the more distant piers and ships, giving them an air of unreality. For the moment, the pier was empty, without vendors and without teamsters and wagons, and Kharl relished the comparative silence. Even the city seemed hushed, and Kharl could hear the lapping of the harbor waters against the pier and against the hull of the Seastag .

In time, he heard footsteps, but he did not turn.

“You came back early,” Rhylla said. “With all your coins, I’d wager.”

“I didn’t take that many,” Kharl admitted. “I had an ale, and some supper. The ale was worth it.”

“They like their foods hot and spicy here. I think most folks in warm places do, but for the life of me, I don’t understand why you’d want to be hotter in a place that’s already too hot. But they do.”

“I don’t, either,” the carpenter replied, absently blotting a forehead he hadn’t realized was so damp until Rhylla had reminded him of the heat.

“Why did you come back early? If I could ask?”

“Something about the place bothered me,” Kharl paused. “And I saw a wizard, and he was wearing a uniform.”

“You didn’t know that?” Rhylla paused. “All wizards or mages have to work for the emperor. He pays well, they say. ’Course there’s no alternative.”

“I saw that, too. He destroyed a man he said was a wizard who had broken the laws of Hamor. Something about being examined.”

“Huh…didn’t know that. Just knew that all the wizards and mages worked for the emperor. Anyone who tries to get one to do something for him without the permission of the emperor-that’s a death sentence.”

“A death sentence?” Then Kharl nodded. In a way, it definitely made sense, at least from the emperor’s point of view. “He controls the mages, and that means he controls everything.”

“I wouldn’t say that…the marshals are pretty strong, they say.”

“But if the mages and wizards are all under the protection of the emperor…?” Kharl looked at the third mate.

“Oh…frig…see what you mean.”

After Rhylla left, Kharl turned back to the railing to study the port city. Somehow, it wasn’t just a coincidence that the two strongest lands in the world were the two where mages and wizards were placed to support those who governed. Recluce had some sort of council where the Brethren had a strong voice, and the emperor controlled the mages in Hamor. Candar had once been strong, but when Recluce had destroyed Fairven and the White Order, Candar had fragmented into conflicting lands. From what Kharl had seen, most of Candar, except for Southport and possibly Diehl, was in decline. Even Brysta looked shabby, but both Nylan and Swartheld looked vigorous.

Still, while all that might be true, what could a mere carpenter do about it?

On the following afternoon, with one more day of loading to go before the Seastag was ready to put back to sea, Kharl decided to make another foray into Swartheld. He’d picked the late afternoon because he was off duty, because he wasn’t certain he wanted to deal with the human creatures of the night who frequented port cities, and because he had the feeling that there well might be more of the emperor’s mages about later in the evening.

When he left the pier, he forced himself to remain on the lower harbor way as he walked southward along the edge of the water. He hadn’t thought of it before, but none of the merchanters had iron hulls, and all had sails. Some were even full-rigged and without any form of steam power. Was that because of the cost of coal? Or for some other reason he didn’t know?

Yet warships were all iron-hulled, even the smaller gunboats of Brysta, and he had seen no merchanters with cannon. That made sense, in a fashion, because a white wizard could touch off gunpowder or cammabark and turn a wooden ship into an inferno. He still had no idea whether it was the combination of ordered iron vessels and the order of the sea that protected warships from mages or whether it was something else. He’d searched The Basis of Order , but as usual had found no definitive answers.

Ahead, there was a small crowd of men standing opposite an open window. When Kharl neared, he could see that a single woman danced slowly in the wide unglassed window of the tavern. Her body was covered with the filmy fabric Kharl had seen on the veil-scarfs of the women at the café-except the fabric was reddish and stained with the darkness of sweat. With the thinness of the fabric, little of the woman’s figure was left to mystery, and her figure was good, Kharl had to admit, although not any better than Charee’s had once been.

At that thought, Kharl swallowed. The sadness and emptiness still came when he least expected it.

“You want to enjoy one like this? Just a silver for a half glass…and she’s all yours, sailor man.” The big man who made the offer topped Kharl by half a head, and Kharl was not small.

“She’s too costly for my wallet,” Kharl said with a forced laugh, easing past the man and along the quieter space of the street immediately past the brothel. Was it just sadness? Or the sense that he and Charee had lost something over the years? Had they ever had that something? Or had their consorting just been an arrangement set up by their families and held together in the beginning by physical attraction and later by the boys? He shook his head. Why was he even asking himself such questions? He couldn’t do much about what was past and gone.