L. Modesitt - Cyador’s Heirs

“You remember your father’s question to me? Has he ever asked you questions like that?”

She laughs. “All the time. He’s asked questions from the time any of us could talk.”

“And?”

She shrugs. “Sometimes I agree with what he wants us to think about. Sometimes I don’t. He doesn’t seem to care whether I agree. He gets angry if I don’t think about why I feel the way I do.” She pauses. “Sometimes, I even think he wants me to disagree with what he’s hinting.”

“What does your mother think about it?”

“She asks questions, too. Not as often. Hers are nastier.”

Nastier? Somehow, Lerial doesn’t think of Maeroja as nasty.

Rojana looks at Lerial. “She’s not nasty. The questions are.”

“Such as?”

She shakes her head. “They’re about women things … I don’t want to talk about them. Aren’t there men things you don’t want to talk about?”

Lerial thinks for a moment, then replies, “There are, but no one’s ever asked me questions about them.”

“That’s because men don’t want to think about them.”

“And women don’t?”

“It’s not the same.” Rojana picks up her spade.

Lerial takes the hint and resumes digging.

By midafternoon, a silvery haze covers the sky, but there are no clouds, and Lerial observes, after blotting his dripping forehead with the sleeve of his work shirt, “It’s not going to cool off much tonight.”

“It never does in summer.”

“Less than usual tonight. That’s because of the silver haze. It keeps the air warmer, and there’s never any breeze”

“Why is that so?”

Lerial stops digging for a moment. “I don’t know. I asked Saltaryn, but he couldn’t tell me.”

“Who’s Saltaryn?”

“He was the magus who taught me.”

“Is he really a magus? One who can throw chaos-fire?”

“I suppose so. Anyone who is a full magus has to be able to do that.”

“Do you know that he can?”

“He could form a globe of chaos-fire on his fingertip and make it dance around or fly through the air to light a candle.”

“Have you ever tried to throw it?”

“I’m not supposed to,” Lerial replies. “I told you that.”

“You never answered my question.”

“I tried when I was younger. I couldn’t. I haven’t tried since I learned how to light a candle with chaos.”

“Why not?”

“Because Saltaryn said I shouldn’t.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Because it would have been dangerous, I suppose.”

“But he didn’t tell you that, did he?”

“No,” Lerial admits.

“So you really don’t know if you can throw chaos-fire.”

This time, it is Lerial who resumes digging without answering.

Even so, Rojana’s question, like her father’s, lingers in his thoughts all through the afternoon … and through dinner, solid and tasty as the fowl stew is.

So, later that evening, a good glass after dinner, Lerial makes his way outside and across the paved bricks behind the villa until he is behind the stable. Then he stands there, feeling hot and sticky, even though he washed up thoroughly after returning to the villa when he finished digging for the day. Overhead, the sky is darkening into a purple overlaid with the hint of silver.

Finally, he takes a deep breath and concentrates on focusing chaos, visualizing a small ball of chaos-fire at the tip of his outstretched index finger. Then he tries to throw the fireball, both with his arm and his thoughts.

The small fireball dribbles from his hand and plops on the brick paving.

Lerial shudders. Something about the chaos-fire feels … ugly … almost unclean, and there is almost a smell, like brimstone … except he knows that the odor isn’t exactly in his nose, but more in his thoughts. Why would it be that way?

He sighs. He supposes his effort proves that, if he practices more, he might be able to throw chaos-fire like a white wizard … but the thought of doing so troubles him … and he has the same feelings he did when he’d seen Lephi tormenting the cat with tiny fireballs. He hasn’t forgotten that Lephi was caned because he’d used chaos, not because he’d hurt the poor cat.

He turns and walks slowly back toward the villa, lost in mixed thoughts … about what Saltaryn had said about mastering chaos first, about what Emerya had implied about the need to understand the flow of order to be able to master chaos, and about Rojana’s question … and why she had pressed him. He has almost reached the north entrance to the villa, when a voice brings him up short.

“Lerial … you’re out here late.”

He looks up with a start to see Maeroja standing by the entry. “I’ve been thinking.” That is certainly true.

“Might I ask…”

“About order and chaos … about a lot of things…”

“You’re a very serious young man. You remind me of what I think Altyrn might have been years ago, when he was young before I met him. He had to learn to laugh, you know?”

Lerial still cannot imagine the majer laughing-at anything. How could anyone think that he and I might be alike?

“He does laugh. He keeps much laughter to himself. You should laugh more, too. Life is too short not to laugh.”

As Maeroja talks, Lerial is reminded once more of the hint of an accent he does not recognize … but only a hint. “One must have something to laugh about.”

“One can laugh about anything … if you look at it from the right point of view.” She smiles. “I will not keep you.” With that, she turns and reenters the villa.

After several moments, Lerial follows, but he does not see Maeroja, although he thinks he hears her steps on the stairs to the upper level.

An eightday passes in which Lerial digs and digs, not only ditches, but holes for the small mulberry trees that have been rooted from cuttings and then transferred to the holes that he and Rojana dug. Then, over the following eightday, the slope and gradients of the ditches have to be adjusted so that just enough water reaches each tree. Some rooted cuttings do not survive, and that requires transplanting more rooted cuttings. By late summer, an orchard of knee-high mulberry trees stands where there had once been a pasture, and Lerial has calluses on his hands and muscles hardened by the kind of labor he’d never imagined. He has given up thinking about Lephi or why his father had sent him to Kinaar, at least most of the time.

Then, after breakfast on oneday, Altyrn draws him aside.

“Ser?”

“From now on,” the majer says, “you’ll work as usual in the morning. In the afternoon, we’ll start your training. You didn’t think that wouldn’t come, did you?”

“I wondered, but it didn’t seem as though what I thought mattered.”

“Self-pity isn’t terribly useful, Lerial. Very few people care if other people feel sorry for themselves. Why do you think I’ve made you work this hard? And Rojana, for that matter?”

“To show me that I’m not that special? And to make me stronger.”

“You are different, but not special. You’re of the Magi’i. You can’t escape what you are, but too many of the Magi’i have no idea what the life of those under them is like. You’ve had more than half a season of hard work, with more to come. I doubt you’ll totally forget it. I hope you won’t. It would be a pity to waste it. What you have to learn now will make what you’ve been through seem pleasant.”

Lerial doesn’t want to think about that. “Why … Rojana?” he cannot help but ask.

“Do you think you’re the only one with illusions? Hers are slightly different from yours, but she also needed to understand that you and the Magi’i are only different, not special.”