L. Modesitt - The Chaos Balance

A dull rumble of thunder cascaded down from the hills, and the engineer-smith turned in his saddle. A line of white and gray clouds roiled above the Westhorns, headed westward and toward the travelers, clouds that swelled skyward and blackened as Nylan watched.

“We’ve been lucky,” Ayrlyn observed. “Ten days in the open, and no rain. You couldn’t have asked for better weather. We can find a shelter up there.”

Nylan looked from the hamlet ahead back to the storm, trying to sense the energy patterns. He failed, as he usually did unless a storm was almost on top of him. “It seems like it’s going to rain for a long time.”

He looked down at Weryl. The rain wouldn’t be good for him, or his still-healing wounds, and it wouldn’t be good for his son.

“It’s a big storm,” Ayrlyn confirmed.

As their mounts plodded down the gentle grade, and the gray gelding plodded after them, the smith studied the hamlet ahead. The walls were of crudely chipped stones, not so much mortared in place as stacked and chinked. The roofs were rough-boarded wooden planks, the joints covered with thinner strips of wood.

Even from more than a hundred cubits east of the village, Nylan could see the gold and brown chickens clustering behind one hut. “Chickens…they have chickens.”

“Everyone has chickens here. Even farther south on the flats, where it’s hotter, they have chickens.”

“It gets hotter and flatter and lower?”

“Of course.”

Nylan groaned. “It’s only spring.”

Behind them, closer now, the thunder rolled again. Weryl shivered in the carrypak, as if he could sense while asleep the order and chaos conflict in the storm as it bore down on them.

“How were you received here?” asked Nylan.

“They didn’t close all the shutters.”

“Oh?” Nylan shifted Weryl again, ignoring the twinges in his shoulder.

“They don’t have shutters-or much of anything else here, except food. Actually, they do have shutters. They don’t have glass for their windows, though.”

“Can we buy some food? Some grain would be good for the horses.”

“I have before, but it depends on how their harvests were.”

“We got some coins from the bandits.”

“Five silvers and a dozen coppers-not exactly fair compensation for the wounds and bruises.”

“And a gray packhorse and saddle.” Nylan took another quick look over his shoulder, but the storm was not that much closer. Then, distances tended to be deceiving in the clear air of Candar. The two continued to ride as the thunder rolled again out of the Westhorns.

“A solid storm,” affirmed Ayrlyn as they neared the hamlet. “Lots of chaos up there.”

“You can feel that?”

“You can’t?”

“No, not until it gets close,” he admitted. “You’re better with the winds, I think.”

“Fancy that…and you admitted I was better.”

“It’s hard.” He forced a grin.

He got a quick smile that faded as Ayrlyn turned her eyes back to the hovels ahead. There were no walks between the dwellings, just pathways worn in the soil by years of foot travel, and small structures to the side or rear of the main houses. Outhouses, Nylan realized, as a certain odor drifted in his direction on the stiffening breeze-outhouses not too carefully tended.

Cleared and turned plots behind the houses were clearly gardens, and their careful tending contrasted with the scattered debris piled beside the doors of several dwellings.

“It’s the trader woman! No one has hair like that…there’s a silver-haired one with her.” The youth darted inside the second dwelling.

“They’ll be disappointed to see I’m a man.” Nylan shifted his weight in the saddle and Weryl yawned. Of course, the boy was waking up. They were about to stop.

“The men will be. I don’t know about the women.” Ayrlyn grinned. “You’d better not try to find out, either.”

“With my friend here?”

“Are you saying you would if Weryl weren’t here?”

“No…” stammered Nylan. “That’s not what I meant.”

“That is not what you said.”

Nylan wanted to wipe his forehead. Why was he always saying dumb things? On the one hand, Ayrlyn wanted him to be more forthcoming. On the other, being forthcoming meant being less cautious, and less cautious meant…He sighed.

“Why the sigh?”

“Later,” he temporized as an old woman stepped out from the first hovel.

Ayrlyn slowed, then stopped the chestnut, and Nylan reined up beside her, glancing around. Three houses farther along the road a man appeared at the door, bearing a staff, but the bearded figure did not move, just watched.

“Trader? Where is your cart?” asked the gray-haired woman.

With a start Nylan realized the woman was not that old, possibly not much older than he was. Behind her, in the doorway of the stone-walled structure, stood a child, perhaps waist high, with a twisted leg that dragged as the girl limped out onto the rock stoop.

The gray eyes beneath the gray hair turned to the smith.

“A silver-hair bearing a child.”

“He is a man and a smith,” Ayrlyn said.

“He has no beard. Are all the silver-haired men such as that? A man with no beard? A silver-haired man with a child. No man of Lornth would carry a child.”

“A beard is too hot,” Nylan said quietly as Weryl began to squirm. He winced as heels jabbed into his diaphragm, but he didn’t want to get his son from the carrypak until he knew how friendly their reception was going to be.

“Waaa-daa.”

He compromised by unfastening the water bottle and letting Weryl drink-and drool water over his left trouser leg. A gust of wind whistled through Nylan’s hair, and a roll of thunder rumbled across the hamlet.

“A smith, you say…well…the angels are different.” She laughed, almost a cackle. “And with those blades and the fires of Heaven, so I’ve heard tell, I’ll not be one to question. Need you any chickens, lady trader?”

“No chickens. We are traveling, not trading.” Ayrlyn paused. “Who might share a roof with us?”

“Hisek might have room, and he has a large shed that would shelter your mounts.” The woman pointed. “At the other side, just beyond the burned hut. That was Jirt’s place. Not much, and since Hisek’s consort died, Jirt and his woman live with Hisek. Hisek’s his sire. They have a large common, and even a separate room for the two. Imagine that. Hisek built it for Gistene. Said it was what they did in Lornth. Much good it did her.” The eyes sharpened. “Why be you traveling so early in the year?”

“Because it would not have been healthy for me or my son to remain on the Roof of the World,” Nylan temporized.

“That place be not healthy for many, so I’ve heard.” The lame girl tugged at her mother’s arm, and the gray-haired woman nodded. “The pot’s boiling. Go see Hisek.”

The brown-bearded man merely watched as they rode past his house, his eyes flicking from Nylan to Ayrlyn and then to Weryl. Nylan nodded politely, but the man did not respond. Then they rode past the burned home-little remained beyond the blackened stones and the charred remnants of roof timbers.

“That must have happened this winter,” Ayrlyn remarked.

“Winter…” Of course-winter was when people had fires for heat, and when few were outside to see if a spark had caught something.

Ayrlyn and Nylan reined up outside the larger stone house-it even had a rudimentary covered porch, and there was a long shed to the side of the dwelling. A long, lowing sound indicated that at least one ox was in the shed.

“Greetings!” called Ayrlyn as she dismounted.

Nylan watched as a heavyset, white-haired man stepped out under the porch.