The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Almost as difficult as for a single woman to travel Candar unmolested,” added Ryba dryly.

  A murmur of assent ran across the tables.

  Nylan wanted to shake his head. Candar was a powerflux ready to explode, and just by founding Westwind Ryba had started the energy cascade.

  “Daryn?” asked the Marshal.

  “Yes, Marshal,” answered the youth warily.

  “What do you know about a place called Cyador?”

  “Only what the traders tell, ser. It is the ancient home of those who follow the white way, and filled with silver and malachite, and great buildings walled with mirrors that catch and hold the sun. Even the smallest of dwellings are like palaces.”

  “Exactly where is this paradise?”

  “Somewhere beyond the Westhorns-that is all I know.”

  “What brought that up?” Nylan asked Ryba.

  “I’ve been studying some of those scrolls Ayrlyn picked up, and there are some disturbing references to Cyador, especially to how the ancient ones channeled the rivers and built the grass hills to turn back travelers. Oh, and about how some daughters of Cyador fled to the barbarians.” Ryba’s voice turned dry. “I wonder about paradise if those daughters fled.”

  A murmur of laughter went around the table.

  “It must be beyond Lornth, then,” said Ayrlyn. “Relyn never mentioned it. Nor did Nerliat.”

  “Relyn’s probably spreading tales about the great new ancient one,” suggested Hryessa.

  “That will only cause more trouble,” said Ryba quietly. Her eyes turned on Nylan momentarily, before she took a mouthful of the mint stew.

  Not about to get into a discussion about Relyn and his efforts to create a new religion based on what he had learned from Nylan, the smith ate quietly, occasionally glancing at Ayrlyn, pleased to see some of the pallor leaving her face as the healer ate.

  “Eating helps, doesn’t it?” he said, knowing it was an inane comment, but wanting to reach out.

  “Somewhat. With some rest, I’ll feel better,” answered Ayrlyn.

  “If someone needs something that way,” he offered, “send them to me. Or Istril. She’s practicing her skills.”

  “I told her to. I’m glad she is.”

  “We will need more healers,” Ryba said coolly, and the certainty of her words chilled Nylan. What else was she seeing?

  Ayrlyn and Nylan exchanged glances, then continued to eat ‘without speaking.

  After the midday meal, Nylan walked up the five flights of the stone steps to the top level, turning right into his quarters, across from Ryba’s. He looked around the bare room-one window, glazed in wavery local glass; a lander couch that made a hard bed, but better than anything of local manufacture; a crude table and stool; and a rocking chair for when he sang Dyliess to sleep.

  “Nylan?”

  He turned.

  The dark-haired Marshal of Westwind stood in the door, carrying a squirming silver-haired child, more than an infant, but not quite a toddler. “Could you take her? I’d like to practice. Or you could practice first-”

  “Go ahead. I’ll practice after you.” The smith-engineer extended his hands for his daughter, and she extended hers.

  “Gaaaa…”

  “Gaaa to you, too.” Nylan lifted Dyliess to his shoulder and hugged her.

  “I’ll be down below,” Ryba repeated. “Then… I don’t know.”

  “Fine.” Nylan eased himself into the crude rocking chair he’d crafted just so that he could have one in his own quarters to rock Dyliess.

  As he rocked, her fingers grasped the edge of the carvings on the back of the chair, and then his silver hair-and his ear.

  “Easy there, young lady. Your father’s ears are tender.” He lowered her and sat her in his lap, beginning to sing to her.

  “On top of old Freyja, all covered in ice…”

  His voice was getting hoarse when there was a rap on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Ser…” A thin-faced woman with mahogany hair stood at his door. “The Marshal sent me up-”

  “You’re going to take care of Dyliess while I practice, Antyl?”

  “If you’d wish it, ser.”

  “That’s fine.” Trust Ryba to send someone else to Nylan for Dyliess. Despite the close quarters of the tower, Ryba avoided Nylan as much as possible, asking as little as possible, as though he were the unreasonable one. He’d been tricked into being a stud, manipulated into incinerating thousands, and deceived in who knew how many little ways, but he was unreasonable-even though he’d essentially built and armed Westwind. And Ryba wondered why he didn’t want anything to do with her? If it weren’t for Dyliess and the other children…

  But they were his and linked to Westwind, and there was no changing that, none at all.

  He stood up from the rocking chair and eased Dyliess to his shoulder for a moment, patting her back. Then he half-lowered her and kissed her cheek before easing her into Antyl’s arms.

  “How’s Jakon?”

  “He be fine, ser, a strong baby. He sleeps now.” With a broad smile, the brunette turned and headed down the stone steps of the tower.

  Nylan stripped off his jacket and headed down the steps to the dimness of the fifth level, where practicing was a contest not only against his partner, but against the gloom and uncertain lighting. Ryba claimed that blades were as much feel as vision, and perhaps she was right. Nylan wasn’t certain he’d even seen half the men he’d killed with a blade over the past two years. He’d certainly felt their deaths, suffused with white agony, but had he really seen them with his eyes?

  That was the problem with Ryba. She was almost always right, but he hated her insistence that power-or cold iron- was the only true solution to surviving in Candar.

  “Here’s the engineer,” called Istril, holding Weryl and watching the sparring floor.

  “Catch!” called Saryn.

  Nylan’s hand reached out almost automatically and caught the hardwood wand, flipping it again and catching the hilt end. As he did, he absently wondered how he had gotten so proficient in handling antique weapons of destruction-except he wasn’t. He could defend himself against most, and he had killed more than a few raiders and attackers-one at a time, since, after the first or second killing, the white-infused waves of pain that flowed through him left him virtually incapacitated.

  He wasn’t unique. All those who showed the innate ability to manipulate the order fields to heal-all the silver-haired ones and Ayrlyn-had the same problem. Ryba couldn’t heal, but she could certainly kill.

  Interestingly, Nylan reflected as he flexed the wand, trying to warm up briefly, all of those who showed those healing traits had survived, even despite the battles they had been forced to fight.

  “Watch this,” Saryn told the handful of recruits lining the chalked-off practice floor.

  Nylan knew only about half the faces by name, and he wished they wouldn’t watch. He glanced to the corner where Daryn sat on a stool. The smith probably needed to craft some sort of prosthetic device for the youth’s foot, as he had for Relyn’s lost hand.

  “Ready, Nylan?”

  “Not really.” The smith lifted the hardwood wand, trying to let the feeling of unseen darkness and order flow around him and through him.

  Saryn lifted her wand, a shimmering laserlike force that probed and slashed through the gloom of the fifth-level practice area.

  As usual, Nylan felt awkward, barely parrying Saryn’s initial attacks, giving ground and retreating, trying to capture the sense of order that was his only salvation from bruises or, in actual combat, death.

  As he melded with the hardwood wand that mirrored a blade, he finally surrendered to the flow of order and let the wand take its own course.

  “… engineer’s so good… bet not even the Marshal could touch him…”

  “… notice, though… he never strikes… all defense…”

  But how long could he only defend? How long?

  III


  THUS CONTINUED THE conflict between order and chaos, between those who would force order and those who would not, and between those who followed the blade and those who followed the spirit.

  On the Roof of the World, those first angels raised crops amid the eternal ice, and builded walls, and made bricks, and all manner of devisings of the most miraculous, from the black blades that never dulled to the water that flowed amidst the ice of winter and the tower that remained yet warm from a single fire.

  Of the great ones in those times were, first, Ryba of the twin blades, Nylan of the forge of order, Gerlich the hunter, Saryn the mighty, and Ayrlyn, of the songs that forged the guards of Westwind.

  For as the skilled and terrible smith Nylan forged the terrible black blades of Westwind, and wrenched the very stones from the mountains for the tower called Black, so did Ryba guide the guards of Westwind, letting no man triumph upon the Roof of the World.

  For as each lord of the demons said, ‘I will not suffer those angel women to survive,’ and as each angel fell, Ryba created yet another from those who fled the demons, until there were none that could stand against Tower Black.

  So too, as did each of the forges of Heaven fail, did the mighty smith Nylan bend the fires of the world to his will and forge yet anew the black blades of Westwind.

  Yet, despite Nylan’s efforts in smiting the legions of the demons into dust, Ryba the mighty was not satisfied, and she asked for more black blades than the snowflakes that fell upon Tower Black, and for arrows that no armor could stop. And Nylan bent the forges to his will, and it was so, and still was Ryba displeased…

  … and so it came to pass that Ryba was the last of the angels to rule the heavens and the angel who set forth the Legend for all to heed…

  Book of Ayrlyn

  Section I

  (Restricted Text)

  IV

  MOST ILLUSTRIOUS LORD, Protector of the Steps to Paradise, and-“

  “Enough, Themphi. Enough,” answered the silver-robed figure who sat easily in the sculpted malachite and silver chair on the dais. “What is the problem? This time?”

  The man in white bowed. “My lord Lephi… the snows were mighty, and the Great East River rises.”

  “And all the rice fields in Geliendra will be washed away?”

  “Yes, Sire. And those in Jakaafra.” The white wizard bowed again, more deeply.

  “What of the northern dams, and the diversions?”

  “The… storms…” stammered Themphi. “You were-”

  “They destroyed those as well as the locks of Kuliat? Why was I not informed of that?”

  “Your Mightiness received the scrolls in the field…” Themphi offered a stained scroll. “… as you did this one at Guarstyad-”

  “I am supposed to remember details of waterworks when I am trying to rebuild the fireships? Or commanding an army? Or remember that I received a scroll in the midst of dark confusions?” Lephi’s eyes flickered toward the two sets of ornate open grillwork that flanked the dais and concealed the Archers of the Rational Stars. Then he leaned forward in the malachite and silver chair, his silver linens rustling. “Themphi, my wizard of the Throne of Reason, Emperor and heir to the Rational/Stars I may be, but even emperors do not recall everything-especially in these times.” He paused. “Why do the eastern barbarian kingdoms no longer respect Cyador?”

  “Sire?”

  “You are thinking of rice fields, Themphi. We will address those in a moment. Why is mighty Cyad no longer respected?”

  “Cyador remains mighty.”

  “Yet barbarian traders attempted to establish a fortified enclave at Guarstyad, miserable corner of the word that it is. Why?”

  “It is on the borders of Cyador, and there are no Mirror Lancers or Shining Foot there.”

  “In my grandsire’s days, they would not have dared. Why do they dare now?”

  The wizard frowned ever so slightly. “You routed them, Sire. They will not try again.”

  “Had we the great fire cannons or were the fireship completed, they would not have dared.” Lephi leaned back in the shimmering throne. “The barbarians have short memories and respect little save force. We must restore our abilities to supply that force.”

  “Yes, Sire.”

  “You humor me, Themphi. You think I am erratic and obsessed. Perhaps I am. An emperor must be obsessed. How else can he guide his people?”

  The wizard nodded.

  “Answer me! How else?”

  “Any ruler must guide his people.”

  “You talk, and you say nothing. Would that I did not need you and your kind. Would that… but wishes are but fluttering breezes dashed against stone.” Lephi sighed. “Now… you may proceed with the rice fields.”

  “I should have seen that you were informed once you returned, Your Mightiness,” offered Themphi.

  “Someone should have. Someone should have.” Lephi eased back in his throne. “Can we send the White Engineers?”

  “The Second is at hand…” offered the wizard.

  “No… the fireship project comes first. I will not let those thieves from Ruzor or Lydiar or Spidlar…” Lephi let his words break off.

  “The Third Company could go. You sent the first to Fyrad-”

  “To rebuild the trading piers and the levees. I recall. With the Second engaged here… Yes, send the Third.” Lephi paused. “And send one of the Mirror Legions. Whichever one Queras can spare most.”

  “Yes, Your Mightiness.” Themphi bowed as if to depart.

  “Have we heard from the northern barbarians?”

  “About the reopening of the copper mines?”

  “Exactly.”

  “No, Sire. The messenger could not have reached Lornth yet, even upon the fastest of Your Mightiness’s steeds.”

  Perspiration beaded on the white wizard’s forehead as Lephi’s eyes narrowed.

  “Are you suggesting, white wizard, that I am impatient?” asked the Lord of Cyador.

  “No, Sire. Only that Lornth is far beyond the Walls of the North.”

  “Those walls will move northward again. We will need the copper for the fireships to come.” Lephi smiled. “Inform me when we receive word from Lornth. In the meantime, best you study the old tomes on the diversions, Themphi. And on containing chaos within ship boilers.”

  “Yes, Mightiness.” The white mage’s voice was even.

  V

  NYLAN STEPPED FROM the smithy, even before Blynnal rang the chimes for the midday meal, squinting as the snow-reflected glare cascaded around him.

  “Frigging bright,” mumbled Huldran as she stumbled out into the light after the smith.

  “Sun and snow.” The smith nodded and began to walk downhill. Despite the comparative warmth and the disappearance of the snow and ice cover from the south side of the rocky cairns and some sections’ around the canyon mouths, he hadn’t seen any signs of snow lilies. Did that mean they’d have more spring snows? Or had the guards done something in their cultivation to kill off the lilies?

  Nylan didn’t know. There was so much that they had yet to learn about this world. The similarities to Heaven-type worlds helped, but there were certainly differences, like the semideciduous trees that looked H-norm, but had green leaves that turned gray and curled up around the branchlets that held them. Only about half the leaves fell every year.

  And the reference to Cyador had surprised Nylan. Ryba had intimated that the place was almost a throwback to the white demons of Rationalism, but again, in almost two years no traders or locals had mentioned Cyador. He’d never even heard the name before, and that kind of surprise bothered him. Had Ryba gotten another vision? He had begun to wish long before that her visions were not so devastatingly accurate.

  “Did you ever hear the name Cyador?” he asked Huldran.

  “Before the Marshal mentioned it the other day? No. Maybe the healer had, but no one else had, either, except for Ydrall, but she came from coins.”

  “What did Ydral
l know?”

  “Not much more than Daryn, except that they don’t let traders in and that they keep their women locked up. They have trading stations at the borders-or they used to. Lornth had problems with Cyador years ago, and there hasn’t been much trading since. Ydrall didn’t know what kind of problems, though.”

  A culture even harder on women than Lornth and those of the lands bordering Westwind? He shook his head, then rubbed his chin. He really needed a shave. He didn’t care for the local bearded look at all, but shaving with a blade, a real dagger-edge blade, had taken some learning, and not a few cuts along the way. Of course, some of the local recruits had wondered if he was actually a. man, since he didn’t have a beard-as if hair made the man. He snorted.

  As they reached the outer end of the causeway to the tower, Blynnal appeared and used the wooden mallet to hammer out a rough melody on the chimes that had replaced the old triangle. She wore a burlaplike apron over her gray trousers and tunic, and a jacket thrown over everything. The brunette smiled shyly at Nylan. “I do not have the touch of the healer, not with the songs, but I try.”

  “You have the touch with the food,” the smith-engineer responded. “And we’re all very thankful for that.”

  “It is good to have so many people who like what I cook. Dyemeni-he never liked anything.” Her eyes went to Nylan. “Would that all men were like you.” Then she smiled again. “Today, we have the noodles with the hot sauce, and the flat bread.”

  “Good.” Nylan inadvertently licked his lips. When Blynnal said food was hot-it was spiced hot and then some.

  “The tea is cold-for you.” Blynnal laughed, then struck the chimes again.

  Huldran grinned and glanced at the smith.

  “You’ll need that tea, too,” Nylan predicted.

  “Probably, but it’s a lot better than the slop poor Kadran fixed.”

  As Nylan walked into the entryway, Siret stood by the nursery with Kyalynn, waiting. Smiling at the tall silver-haired guard and mother of his other daughter, the smith wondered if the two silver-haired guards had an informal arrangement as to which child he would see before the noon meal. Still, he had to admit he looked forward to seeing the children, more than a little.