The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  In the afternoon heat, half the squad sat under the eastern eaves of the long roof of what had been the winter sheep barn. It was too hot in the still air to rest inside the heavy planked walls. Ayrlyn had the other half with her, scouting the area, and seeing where watchposts should be established.

  The sound of hoofs broke the hot stillness as Sias drove the team toward the holding. The wagon shuddered to a stop less than ten cubits from the chicken house smithy, and a black-faced Sias set the brake, then clambered down. The one thing that Syskar did have was a small seam of coal, almost played out, but with enough to feed Nylan’s forge-once Sias chipped the dark rock away from the walls of the near-abandoned pit trench.

  “There should be enough for an eight-day, ser.”

  “You don’t know how fast a forge can go through coal.”

  The lanky armsman slowly shook his head.

  “Let’s get it unloaded. Then you can take care of the horses.”

  After the two shoveled the rough chunks of coal into a pile, and Sias led the team toward the corral, Nylan stepped toward the forge and looked at the short heap of white-bronze blades. He needed a closed container first-the tubing would come later.

  The white-bronze blades held some order, like his own dark iron blades-something he had not anticipated, not after sensing the whitish chaos that seemed to mist around the Cyadoran forces. After studying the top blade, turning it, and letting his perceptions range across and through it, he set it back on the pile, and took his own blade from the scabbard hung in the corner, and gave it the same scrutiny.

  He frowned. There was definitely whiteness within his blade, almost as though he had inadvertently wrapped order around chaos to bind it-but he had never even thought about that, not before the tree dreams and his binding order with chaos in healing Nesslek. Finally, he replaced the blade. Speculations weren’t going to solve his technical problems.

  By the time the cookfires had added smoke and grit to the dusty air, as well as the odor of burned fat and strong mutton, and the chime had rung, Nylan had little more than two sheets, of bronze-or was it brass? No, brass was softer, he thought, and used zinc as an alloy.

  “Let’s bank it,” he told Sias. “Enough for tonight. The bronze is harder to work, and… never mind.”

  “Harder?”

  “You have to be more gentle. I punched through more than once, and you saw the problems that caused.” The smith racked the tools. Once he was satisfied the smithy was as neat as possible and the coals were safely banked, he headed for the well. He needed to wash up-badly-before he ate.

  The evening meal was as strong as the odors had suggested, and eating around the battered trestle table in the dwelling with Fornal, Lewa, and Tonsar-none of whom placed bathing high on the list of daily rituals-didn’t help the offenses to Nylan’s olfactory system. Nor to Ayrlyn’s. She excused herself even before Nylan, and Fornal only grunted.

  After forcing himself to eat and finishing what he could, Nylan escaped the hot table in the main room of the dwelling by following Ayrlyn’s example and heading for the shadowed front stoop on the north side of the structure.

  He paused in the doorway, listerling to Sylenia and Ayrlyn singing.

  “Oh, Nylan was a mage, and a mighty smith was he.

  With rock from the heights and a lightning blade built he…“

  The smith held in a groan and stepped out onto the stoop, keeping a smile on his face, mainly for Weryl, since Ayrlyn wasn’t deceived by such.

  Ayrlyn continued to strum the lutar, but her eyes smiled as she wound up the song. Then she turned to Sylenia. “You need time to yourself, whatever… but don’t believe everything that Tonsar says.”

  The nursemaid flushed.

  Nylan scooped up his silver-haired son and hugged him, just holding him for a long time, until Weryl began to squirm.

  “All right… all right.” Nylan sat down in the shade on the fired mud tiles of the stoop, setting Weryl so that the boy stood between his knees.

  “Enyah…” Weryl jabbed a hand toward the black-haired nursemaid as she walked through the long shadows that presaged twilight toward the well, toward the long and low former sheep shed that served as the barracks for all the armsmen. “Enyah.”

  “That’s Sylenia. She’s good to you.” And good to us.

  “Does it bother you?” asked Ayrlyn from where she sat propped up beside the door Nylan had rehung with a crude . strap hinge he had forged.

  “That he’s taken to her?” Nylan shrugged. “I don’t know. If he’d stayed with Zeldyan, he’d be fond of her, too. It’s better this way in some ways-but he’s had rashes, and sunburn, and that insect bite. It’s a good thing you’re a healer.”

  “You’ve healed as many minor injuries as I have. More probably.” Ayrlyn offered a faint smile. “Why don’t you think of yourself as a healer? Does identifying yourself as a smith and engineer mean you can’t be a healer?”

  The silver-haired angel rubbed a stubbly chin, extending an arm that Weryl promptly grabbed.

  “Daaa!”

  Nylan smiled at his son.

  “Well?” prodded the redhead gently. “Why don’t you want to think of yourself as a healer?”

  Was it that he thought healers were somehow… unmanly? No… not exactly, because he’d certainly tried to heal enough people in Westwind after discovering the innate talent. Did he fear that being labeled as a healer would force him to prove more? Or was it that he thought being a smith and engineer was more valuable… more prestigious?

  “I’m not sure… probably a combination of a lot of things.” He eased himself down a step to follow Weryl as the toddler climbed down the steps.

  Nylan’s eyes caught a movement, and he paused as the squat brown-bearded levy stepped toward Sylenia. She shook her head, her face set.

  Nylan’s fingers reached for the blade at his hip, but relaxed as Tonsar strolled from the de facto barracks toward the woman. The levy backed away.

  The shadows did not hide what seemed to be a wide and shy smile from Sylenia as the subofficer neared.

  “Tonsar seems well-meaning enough, for all the bluster.” Nylan paused. “Think we ought to talk to him about Sylenia?”

  “Like your engineer self-definition, his bluster protects him. And yes, we should.”

  “Do you know who that levy is?”

  “Tregva or Tregvo, something like that.”

  “He’s been watching her.”

  “I told Tonsar,” Ayrlyn said. “He said that no one would bother her.”

  “Enyah!” Weryl began to totter toward the well.

  The smith found himself walking after the boy and scooping him up. “Let her be, young man.” He lifted the boy to his shoulder and turned back toward the dwelling where he set Weryl on the stoop, seating himself so that his body and legs blocked the steps.

  “Enyah?”

  “Later.” Twilight or not, Nylan found his forehead dripping. “Darkness, it’s hot. These people really are descendants of the Old Rat demons.”

  “It’s not even the hottest part of the summer, yet.” The corners of Ayrlyn’s mouth turned up in the dimness of the covered stoop. “They think we’re descendants of the ice angels, remember?”

  “Crazy universe…”

  “I don’t think we’ve found out how crazy,” Ayrlyn said.

  Despite the heat, Nylan shivered at the certainty in her voice.

  LXXIV

  FORNAL SAT ON the sole stool at the end of the trestle table, next to the mug and uncorked bottle of vinegary amber wine. He picked up the bottle and filled the mug. “Hope this has fared better than the last.”

  “It should.” Nylan had tried to sense the handful of wine bottles and had picked what felt the least disordered.

  After a swallow, Fornal wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Best of a bad lot. Too hot here for good wine.” He took another swallow. “You wanted to talk.”

  On the bench across the table from the one on which the
angels sat, Huruc and Lewa nodded in turn, the candle throwing exaggerated shadows of their motions on the blotched wall behind them.

  “We should make Jirec our ‘official’ camp,” suggested Ayrlyn, taking a swallow of water from her mug.

  “Even I know Jirec is not a good place for our camp,” said Huruc. “The stream is drying up, and die wells are brackish.”

  “Brackish,” echoed Lewa. “It is too close to the camp of the white demons.”

  “Say on,” said Fornal mildly, refilling the mug before him. “We build some large cookfires, spend a day or so there, clang a few chimes, and get our friends to come visit. And we give them a surprise party.”

  Fornal and Lewa exchanged puzzled glances. Huruc and Nylan grinned.

  “What sort of surprise?” asked Fornal cautiously. “We set up a trap. So far, we’ve been fairly straightforward. Barbarians don’t do sneaky things,” Nylan explained. “The Cyadorans know you wouldn’t consider such a devious scheme.” He wanted to add something to the effect that honor forbade it, but decided against pressing Fornal.

  “If you wish to attempt such a… a scheme,” Fornal finally said, “I wish you and your levies well.” He drained the mug in a single gulp-admirable restraint, Nylan suspected, for the young regent.

  At least he hadn’t openly called it dishonorable, Nylan reflected as he answered. “We should be able to kill more than a few if we set it up right.” He smiled at Fornal. “That way you will have fewer to face in open battle.” His guts twisted- the order fields didn’t like deception, not in him, anyway, and the discomfort was continually getting worse.

  “I am becoming more glad that you fight for Lornth,” Fornal said slowly. “I do not like this dodging and plotting, but the white demons have not been honorable. While you undertake this, I will return to Clynya to raise more armsmen to replace those we have lost. I trust that will not be a problem?”

  “No,” said Nylan. “We will work to ensure you return to face fewer of the Cyadorans. We will have to gather a few things, like mattocks and shovels and picks, and I will have to forge a few items.”

  “Do what you must.” Fornal picked up the bottle as he stood. “This was almost decent, angels.” He nodded stiffly. “Good eve.” Then he carried the bottle to his room. The door shut firmly.

  “I must go. To the barracks.” Lewa rose.

  Only after the other subofficer left did Huruc shake his head. “You angels make them uncomfortable,” he said in a low voice. “Ser Fornal knows he must win, but he struggles against the old traditions. Lewa-he cannot see beyond what has always been.”

  “And what of you, Huruc?” asked Nylan.

  “The world is changing. A handful of women and a single mage have destroyed the mightiest gathering of armsmen in my lifetime. Three mighty white wizards perished. A smith and a mage takes a small heavy blade and disarms the mighty and apologizes for his skill.” Huruc smiled ruefully. “Yet… honor should serve men, not destroy them.” He rose. “I, too, must check my men.”

  At the door, the armsman turned. “I hope you are as successful against the white demons as you have been against Lornth.” Then the subofficer disappeared into the darkness.

  “I do, too,” offered Nylan, watching the flicker of the candle change the size of Ayrlyn’s shadow on the wall.

  “We will be.” Then Ayrlyn’s fingers reached across the table and twined with his. “We can’t do anything more tonight. Success or not, life is short. And Sylenia is meeting Tonsar in the old hayloft, and Weryl is asleep.”

  Nylan squeezed her fingers in return. They rose, side by side, and eased toward the door to their room.

  The smith hoped that, later, he did not dream once more of trees filled with both order and chaos. His daytime existence had far too much of each… and yet… yet… he knew he needed to explore whatever the tree dream-or message- meant. He just didn’t know when he had time.

  “Later,” Ayrlyn whispered.

  LXXV

  …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. Yet Ryba did not wish the Legend to leave Westwind.

  For with the going forth of the prophet Relyn, who told all east of the mighty Westhorns about the Legend and the triumph of order, Ryba became more displeased, and called unto her all those of her guards.

  And from that day did the new angels accept no man full-grown, no matter how ill or disabled, leaving any man found in the domain of Westwind to make his own way or to perish upon the Roof of the World.

  Nor was any man raised in Westwind allowed to lift a blade, for it was foretold that when a man next lifted a blade would Westwind soon fall, but until then would Tower Black hold against all Candar, east and west, and even against all the mages of the world.

  When word carried to Tower Black that the smith Nylan forged mighty blades again, and that those of Lornth warred with ancient Cyador, the black stones shivered with the foresight of the Angel.

  Then did Ryba announce that Lornth would rue the day it put its trust in the iron of Nylan and the songs of Ayrlyn, for all that a. man builds with iron will fall to iron, and the songs that a man finds sweet can carry no truth.

  And the guards of Westwind hardened their hearts, as cold and terrible as the ice that never leaves Freyja…

  Book of Ayrlyn

  Section I

  (Restricted Text)

  LXXVI

  NYLAN PATTED THE mare’s neck, easing her into a wide turn, and rode slowly back toward the south end of Jirec, trying to see the approach to the abandoned hamlet as the Cyadorans might, On the right side of the road were the remnants of a long animal shed, the west end collapsed, so that the ruins looked like an earthen ramp. Beyond the sod-roofed shed were the blackened walls of a dwelling that had been fired by the Cyadoran sweep of the hamlet eight-days earlier.

  Thin plumes of gray smoke-cookfires for the “Lornian camp”-rose from the far end of the rough oval of dwellings that clustered around the seasonal and now dried-up watercourse.

  If Kula and Syskar were ovens, Nylan reflected, Jirec was an antique blast furnace where a low wind carried gray grit everywhere, pitting building walls and removing all color, roughing exposed skin and faces, irritating already over-stressed eyes, shortening tempers, and turning every scrap of food into something resembling internal sandpaper.

  He blinked, trying to let his tears dislodge another fragment of wind-blown grit, as he rode slowly along the rutted way until he neared the small olive grove where eight armsmen- and Ayrlyn-labored.

  “I am not a laborer,” said Fuera, under his breath, looking up from the thigh-deep trench, then looking away from Ayrlyn, whose eyes flashed.

  Nylan turned in the saddle. “Ayrlyn didn’t want to hear your complaints, Fuera, and now you’re bitching to me. Neither of us wants to hear it. We’ve been doing our best to keep you alive, and you keep complaining. Do you think Ayrlyn likes plaiting grass? Or that I liked sharpening poles?” His arms went to the scratches across his uncovered forearms. “Your bladework has gotten good enough that you could rejoin Huruc’s squad. If you keep it up, I just might let you. Besides, why complain now? You’re almost done.”

  Fuera looked down at the shovel and resumed digging.

  “… may be tough, Fuera, but most’d have flogged you or killed you…”

  “… poor Fuera doesn’t want to get his white hands dirty…”

  Ayrlyn continued to rough-plait weed stalks and grasses into mats which she had stacked along the trenches. Meresat laid sticks across the completed trenches, then set the mats over them, concealing the lines of sharpened poles that angled up, before gently covering the mats with a thin layer of gravel and dirt-some of which blew away even before touching the mats.

  Nylan guided the mare around the road. He glanced toward the trenches opposite the olive grove. That part had already been completed. “You have that nasty look in your eyes again,” he said as he drew up beside Ayrl
yn and looked down at the redhead. “The one that says people are going to get hurt.”

  “If I have to go back to basket-weaving, someone is going to pay for it. I don’t get to ride around looking important.”

  “I did cut and sharpen most of those poles,” he pointed out. “And I was lugging stones for a barrier.”

  “Let’s hope this works.”

  “It should. The Cyadorans are arrogant enough to ignore most of the details. They always attack later in the day.” He pointed. “The shadows from the olives-I think they’re olives, anyway-they’re already hitting on the covered trenches.”

  “You’re sure they won’t see them?”

  “That’s where the archers come in. You don’t look at the ground when people are firing arrows at you, particularly dumb barbarians.”

  “So… they’ll keep moving?”

  “That’s the general idea.”

  Ayrlyn tossed out another mat and stretched. “That should do it.” She walked back across the road and toward the side of the grove farthest from the road to where she had tied the chestnut. She eased her water bottle from the holder, uncorked it, and took several long swallows.

  “That’s better. This place is dusty.”

  “Let’s take a look at where we set up for the archers, and then check and make sure Tonsar has everything ready to bring to the diggers if the Cyadorans show up.” Nylan waited as Ayrlyn mounted, then let his mare walk slowly away from where the eight men completed the last trench. If the Cyadorans didn’t show, then they’d start adding another trench or so at twilight and finish early in the morning.

  North of the olive grove were more burned-out buildings- a dwelling, two sheds, and the earth-banked and stone-walled ruins of a long barn. The faint odors of death and charcoal swirled together with the grit of the hot light wind.

  Nylan swallowed and pointed. “We can hold all the mounts here. You can’t see them from the grove or the road.”