L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

“I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long,” Ryba said. “I’ve given you the chance to think all winter.”

“I won’t take that long,” he promised.

With a curt nod, Ryba turned toward the door, then stopped. “Will you be here?”

“I have some notes to do-on the mill.”

“Will you listen for Dyliess, then, until I get back?”

“Of course.”

Another nod, and the Marshal was gone.

Nylan walked to the window and looked out, up toward the ridge and the watchtower. He couldn’t see the ice-needle Freyja from his single window.

After he studied the mountains for a time, and his muscles began to relax, he went back to the work table, where he used the striker to light the single candle. Although his night vision was nearly as good as his day vision for most matters, the candle did help in writing and reading. As the flame lengthened, and cast light from the polished bronze reflector onto the table, he sat down on the stool and looked at the papers weighted down under the ornate hilt of a blade that had broken at the tang. He had found it in the plunder from the great battle, long since separated from the actual blade. The hilt was heavy, overdone, and had doubtless added a poor balance that had contributed to the blade’s breaking, along with a tang that had been too narrow, but the hilt itself made a decorative paperweight.

In the dim candlelight, Nylan squinted at the crude paper on the table, then dipped the quill into the ink and began to draw-slowly and carefully. Each section of the mill had to be laid out so that there would be no mistakes. The purple outside the open window turned velvet black, and the chirp and whistle of unnamed insects rose and fell.

At the tap on the door, he looked up. Ayrlyn’s face peered in.

He motioned, and the healer entered, easing the door shut behind her.

“Ryba and Saryn are still down in the great room, talking over something obscure, like whether caltrops are really that effective except in defending fixed emplacements and whether two-handed blades are useful in mounted attacks. Saryn was advocating lances and beefed-up stirrups…”

Nylan smiled wryly.

The healer shook her head and pointed at the stack of papers before Nylan. “What are you working on there?”

“The plans for the sawmill.”

“You didn’t do that for the tower, or the bathhouse, or the smithy,” she pointed out, then leaned over him and kissed the back of his neck.

“I didn’t have to. I was here.”

“You are serious, aren’t you?”

“Ryba practically ordered me to bed Ydrall. She wants to see the gene mix with locals.”

“I take it you were reluctant.”

“That wasn’t the real point. She was giving me another shove. I told her I’d think about it. I have no intention of thinking about it.” He rubbed his forehead.

“You got ink on your forehead,” Ayrlyn said.

He tried to blot it away with the back of his hand. “Then, when I said I wasn’t the Gerlich type, she said I was, except that fewer women appealed to me, and if Ydrall didn’t appeal to find a local who did so that she could confirm that the genes mixed.”

“Did she put it that way?”

“Pretty much.”

Ayrlyn pursed her lips. “That makes you angry.”

“That, and basically being told my prime value is as a stud.”

“She’s angry at you for choosing me.”

“I’m glad I did,” Nylan said. “I wish I’d seen who you were earlier.”

“I wasn’t who I am now back then, if that makes sense. I was a mousy comm officer.”

“Neither was I. I was a withdrawn engineer. I still am.”

Ayrlyn’s eyes dropped to the papers. “Are you going to tell Ryba about all these plans?”

“Not until we’re on our way out of here.”

“She may not let us have mounts.”

“That’s why we need to make it quick,” Nylan said. “Right now, there’s sympathy for me, for you. If we let her drag it out, it will get so unpleasant that people will just want us gone. She’s proved she’s good at that.”

“For someone who wasn’t sure about leaving, you’ve reached a big decision quickly.”

The engineer-smith-healer shook his head. “To see something I should have seen two years ago? Hardly. Hardly.” He took a deep breath.

Ayrlyn bent over and blew out the candle, then kissed the back of his neck again. “You were almost finished for tonight, weren’t you?”

“If you say so…” Nylan eased out of the chair.

The white wizard and the senior lancer officer rode side by side, the hoofs of their mounts clacking on the time-polished stones of the Lord’s East Road.

They passed a kaystone with sculpted and fluted edges, mounted on a tan stone platform that bore the inscription “GELIENDRA-3 K.” The lancer glanced at Themphi. “Ser wizard?”

“Yes, Jyncka?”

“One should not question His Mightiness, or white brethren, but could you hazard a thought as to why our punishment was so harsh?”

“Harsh?” Themphi raised his eyebrows.

“Harsh,” repeated Jyncka. “We are allowed to buy any peasant girl for a concubine, if we offer double her dowry. We can slay any peasant who raises a hand against us, yet for taking liberties with a peasant girl-and we did not hurt her-we have been destroyed: either executed, allowed to suicide, or condemned to spend the rest of a short life battling the accursed forest. How did this happen? Is our world slowly unraveling, and I cannot see it? Or have I been blind all my years?”

Themphi frowned. “I can tell you what happened. The girl’s father refused two golds and said that you were worse than sows. Then he ran toward His Mightiness. The peasant died. After that, our Lord turned to me and made his judgment. He said that when peasants defied his presence, matters needed attending to. And he sent me, his wizard of wizards, with the injunction that I should not return until the forest was contained.” The wizard smiled coldly.

“So you are exiled as well?”

“In effect.” Themphi shrugged. “Unless we can vanquish the forest.”

“Is that likely?”

“I do not know. I do know that it took all the might and skill of the ancients to contain it.”

“And you must combat it alone?” asked Jyncka.

“With your help and that of those living nearby-that is His Mightiness’s command.”

Jyncka raised his eyebrows. “I would not term that any great reward for service.”

“Rulers do not reward for service, Majer, nor for realistic assessments. They reward for results.”

“Times change,” murmured Jyncka. “A great ship rises in the works at Cyad, a ship like the ancient fireships. They say the lancers ride north to bring the Grass Hills within the Walls of Cyad. Yet we are accorded less honor than before, and those who speak what they believe to be truth are dishonored.”

“They do change,” agreed Themphi dryly. “That is because His Mightiness works to restore what once was Cyad’s, and he has little patience for those who caution against such efforts.”

“…for all that…unraveling from the great skein…” murmured a voice from the lancers somewhere behind. “Fewer steamwagons, fewer wizards…”

Themphi hoped the voice was not Fissar’s, but he did not turn in the saddle. His eyes flicked northward toward the smudge of green on the horizon, and he shifted his weight in the hard saddle.

“Is the world of Cyador unraveling, ser wizard?” asked Jyncka. “Would you enlighten me?”

Themphi shrugged. “You have seen more than I, Majer. Do you think so?”

“I have not seen everything, but what I have seen disturbs me.”

“It disturbs me as well,” said Themphi. His eyes went back to the horizon, and he did not speak for a long time.