L. Modesitt - Wellspring of Chaos

Since he knew supper was still not ready when he headed back through the rain that was changing to a colder and heavier downpour, he stopped for just a moment and picked a leaf from the scraggly plant outside the front door to the bunkhouse. He wasn’t sure whether it was a bush or a weed. Probably a weed from the broad leaf with the thornlike tips.

Carrying it gently in his left hand, he stepped into the common room. Except for several riggers that he knew only by sight and name, the tables were mostly empty. Kharl sat down at one end of a bench. He set the leaf on the table and looked at it, both with eyes and order senses.

Even though he had picked it, there was still some sense of life, although that was fading. Kharl could sense the way the order and chaos ebbed, almost like tiny threads, notched or “hooked” at the ends. Almost on a whim, he tried to link those “hooks.”

The leaf looked subtly different.

When Kharl touched it, it felt as hard as iron. He undid the twists in the order and chaos that he had somehow created, and both order and chaos disintegrated into minute fragments, a touch of white mist and one of black seeping unseen into the air. The leaf itself went limp. He could tell it was also dead, totally dead.

Somehow, he could make things so hard that they were like armor, but doing so would kill anything living. He just sat there in thought for a time.

Argan and Reisl slid onto the benches across the table from Kharl, setting platters down. At the clunk , Kharl looked up.

“Better get some. Looks good,” said Reisl.

“Oh…thank you.” As Kharl stood, he looked at the table for the leaf, but all that was left was a whitish powder. Almost dazed, he walked to the end of the mess line and waited for his platter, then picked up a mug of a very poor ale, and returned to the table across from Reisl and Argan, sitting down, and taking a swallow of the ale. He was thirsty.

“What were you doing?” asked Argan. “We came by and you were looking at some funny leaf. Didn’t even hear us.”

“Coulda fired a cannon at you. Don’t think you’d have moved,” added Reisl.

“Guess I was tired, or hungry,” Kharl replied. “We’ve been working on a second weapons locker. Got the frame tied to the poop frames, and we’ll have most of it done tomorrow. If the rain ever lets up. Got waterproofs over it now, but we’ll still need sunlight to do it right.”

“Another weapons locker?” Reisl looked at Argan. “Can’t say I like that. Captain hear something about more pirates?”

“Maybe it has to do with the lord out west, the one that’s rebelled against Lord Ghrant,” suggested Argan.

“Say the Hamorians might back him,” mumbled Reisl, looking at Kharl. “What do you know about that?”

“Some folks say he’s got a white wizard and more personal guards than most hill lords,” Kharl admitted. “He’s the brother of Lord Ghrant.”

“Brother against brother, and lords, too. That’d be nasty. Be glad when we’re outa dry dock,” Reisl said.

Kharl just nodded. The kalfin was actually fairly good, firm under a crispy crust, and the potatoes were less lumpy than usual.

“Think we’ll get back afloat by next eightday…”

“…Hemmen or Brysta next port…captain hasn’t said…”

Kharl didn’t say too much during supper, but tried to be pleasant and not withdraw into himself.

When Reisl finished, he looked up at Kharl. “Too wet to go to the inn. You want to join the game?”

Kharl smiled. “Thanks, but I had a long day.”

“Just asking.”

“Better that I don’t.” And it was, for more than a few reasons, since Kharl suspected he would have been tempted to try to use his order-senses on the dice.

Instead, after returning his empty platter, he walked outside into the cold rain and stood under the eaves of the bunkhouse next to the wall. He studied the small puddle at his feet, just looking at it for a moment, then taking it in with his senses, trying first to see what the patterns of order and chaos might be, and then following them. He touched the water, ever so lightly, with what he thought of as his order-sense. It seemed to grow still, the way the steam had. Then, he could sense almost what were little hooks on each of the fragments. Somehow, he looked, and thought, and twisted the hooks so that they all locked together.

He almost staggered, because he could feel that he’d exerted some great effort. He looked down at the small puddle, and watched as water droplets falling from the edge of the eaves splattered on the smooth unmoving surface of the water. Had he turned the puddle to clear ice?

Slowly, he bent down and extended his fingers. The changed water was more like cool glass, perhaps slightly warmer than the water had been, but definitely not frozen. He straightened and then stamped his left boot heel on the glassy puddle. The puddle was as hard as stone or steel.

Kharl took out his belt knife and bent down, drawing the tip across the hard water. Even with the unchanged water falling from the eaves and coating the order-hard water, he could see that the knife made no impression, not even the faintest scratch. After a moment, he replaced the knife and looked at the hard water.

Finally, he concentrated and untwisted the hooks of order and chaos. The water shimmered and a faint steamy fog rose from the puddle as the colder water from the eaves struck what had been order-hardened water.

Kharl was suddenly exhausted, as though he had worked at a forge or a lathe all day, then run five or even ten kays. He’d wanted to try some of the other things Lyras had suggested, but he was tired, far too tired. Without looking back, he slowly trudged back inside the bunkhouse, past Reisl and the deckhands gaming. He nodded to Reisl, and got a smile in return.

As he continued down the hallway, past the rooms for the mates toward the bunkroom, he could hear the voices behind him.

“…something about him…scary…”

“…good man,” Reisl answered. “You’d keep to yourself, too, if you’d lost everything he did…consort, children, cooperage…”

“…’sides,” said another voice, “he’s the one found the friggin’ shipworms…could be we’d all be in the deep locker…”

The voices faded out as Kharl slowly undressed and climbed into the bunk. The blackness of sleep was more than welcome.

On oneday morning, Kharl and Tarkyn were attaching the last set of hinges on the door to the second weapons locker. The sky overhead was almost clear, with a faint haze to the west, but a chill and light wind blew out of the north with a dampness that cut through Kharl’s winter jacket.

Tarkyn stepped back and nodded. “An eightday or so, and no one’d know that it hadn’t been there from the time the ship went down the ways.”

“Better that way.” Kharl checked the racks inside and closed the door. The hasp fit over the lock staple perfectly. He slipped the fitted dowel in place to keep the door shut. Once they were back afloat, Ghart would replace the dowel with an actual lock, but at the moment, no lock was needed, since there were no weapons inside the locker.

“Captain ever say why he wanted another locker?” Kharl had asked before, but Tarkyn had always deflected the question.

“Don’t give up, do you?”

“You think I ought to?” countered Kharl. “Would you?”

Tarkyn chuckled, then glanced around the deck, empty except for the two carpenters at that moment. “Didn’t say. Not exactly. Said something about ports not being as safe as they used to be, even Austran ports.”

“He thinks someone might try to take over the ship?”

“With what he said, the thought had crossed my mind.” Tarkyn frowned. “Then, could be he didn’t want to give the real reason. Could be he didn’t have one, except a feeling.”