The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Forcing his thoughts back to the road and what they needed to find, he glanced at Ayrlyn. “There’s scarcely any wind. Why…”

  “A dust devil?”

  He nodded.

  “You get swirls out of the air above, because of the heating and some of the colder winds out of the Westhorns. I’m guessing, but it’s sometimes like an inversion, and the colder air presses through… or something. I’d guess that the winter winds here are something. Probably not too cold, but strong, and then there are drenching thunderstorms in the spring. That’s what supports the grass. Then it dries, and”- Ayrlyn smiled brightly-“it starts all over again.”

  “The horse nomads left because of the winds. That was what my grandmother said,” Tonsar volunteered.

  Almost as suddenly as it had appeared, the distant dust devil vanished.

  “I have a question, Tonsar,” Nylan said quietly.

  “Ser?”

  “About Sylenia. How do you feel about her?”

  Tonsar swallowed again. After a moment, he coughed, then shrugged. “I like her. I like her very much. Is that wrong?”

  “She seems like a good young woman.”

  “Her man was Yusek. He died on the Roof of the World. Her little girl died of the chaos fever. That is why she can be a nursemaid.” Tonsar wiped his forehead, something Nylan hadn’t seen from the burly armsman before. “She was close to Enyka.”

  “Enyka?” asked Ayrlyn.

  “My sister. She went to Rulyarth with Gidser when ser Gethen and Lord Sillek opened the port to our traders.” Tonsar swallowed. “Gidser says that trading is easier there.”

  “Do you have a consort?” Nylan asked bluntly.

  “Me? No, ser. It is a long tale, and once I almost did, but she left me for a merchant, like Enyka took Gidser. Armsmen, they do not find consorts easily.” Tonsar offered a wary smile. Nylan could sense the other’s apprehension, but not the chaos that seemed to go with deceit. His eyes crossed Ayrlyn’s, and she nodded.

  “Are you interested in asking Sylenia to be your consort?”

  Tonsar looked down at the mane of his mount. “I would… but I do not know… she has lost one who was… an armsman.”

  Nylan wanted to laugh. The outgoing, almost boastful, armsman was timid, or worried, or self-conscious.

  “I think she would have you, Tonsar,” Ayrlyn said. “If you do not wait too long to ask her.”

  “And you, angels?”

  “We have no problems with her being your consort, if that’s her wish,” answered the healer.

  “If you treat her well,” Nylan added.

  After a long look at Nylan, Tonsar finally grinned. “I worried. I worried many nights, and she said all would be well. But I worried.”

  “Trust her.” Ayrlyn’s tone was both dry and prophetic.

  Tonsar’s grin got wider.

  In the silence that followed, Nylan studied the browned hills, and he could almost sense the rockiness beneath, as though the soil had been laid over rocks without the depth that natural processes would have created. He frowned. There was also something else, an orderliness, a thin line of order that separated the topsoil and the topmost subsoil from the underlying stones, stones that his order senses registered as preternaturally smooth.

  “There’s a funny line of order under the soil,” he finally said.

  “I do better with clouds,” Ayrlyn said. “Unless I’m lying on it, the ground is just ground. Even then it’s hard to sense much.”

  Nylan felt just the opposite-sensing order in metals and earth was far easier than in the swirling currents of the atmosphere.

  “It has to be sloppy planoforming,” Ayrlyn added. “Even without your senses, I can tell it’s not going to hold that much longer. The rocks are beginning to show through. If there were a lot of rain, the erosion would be fierce. As it is, there’s some grassland stability, but it won’t last much longer.”

  “Grassland stability?” asked the engineer.

  “There’s a thin line between grasslands of this type and desert. Grasslands can actually create rain that wouldn’t be there otherwise.” Ayrlyn shook her head, still surveying the area ahead.

  “So can trees.” Nylan lowered his voice. “I’m still dreaming about them. Is that because we never see any?”

  “Could be. Except… what are you dreaming? Is it the same stuff about dark and white flows?”

  “It’s never been anything else.”

  “Not for me, either, and that’s beginning to bother me.”

  Just beginning? Nylan questioned silently.

  Surprisingly, it was not that long after midday when the trail turned along a ridge line and began to parallel a wider track just to the west.

  “Is that the road you want?” asked Ayrlyn.

  “That’s it. We need to find some ambush spots, places where they couldn’t see if the road were blocked, and where they couldn’t drive a wagon around the barricade. We’ll also need stones-big ones-nearby.”

  “You don’t want much, do you?”

  Nylan shrugged. “If we can’t find everything, we’ll work out something else.” In some ways, that was exactly what he feared.

  LXXX

  THE CYADORAN MAGE walked slowly toward the ash-covered wall. His once-white boots were gray and matched trousers that were so ash-encrusted that they would never be white again.

  Behind him walked Fissar, trimming his longer steps to remain behind the mage.

  Themphi stopped a good hundred cubits short of the line of white stone and turned to the lanky apprentice. “You have the case?”

  “Yes, mage Themphi.” Fissar extended the whitened leather container. His eyes flickered from the gaunt visage of the mage to the knee-high green shoots that rose from the ashes. Those ashes stretched nearly a half kay away from the white stone wall that once had marked the definitive south border of the Accursed Forest. The latest set of shoots remained confined to a space one hundred cubits from the wall. Themphi eased the glass from the soft leather, careful to touch only the edges as he slowly lifted the glass and turned it to catch the sun. Covered with soot, his hands shook. His brows furrowed, but his eyes flashed.

  The air around the white mage seemed to twist, and scattered shadows flickered through the cloudless sky.

  From the glass poured a line of fire that struck the greenery. Ashes exploded like water striking cherry-red iron from a forge, sparking and spraying away from the sunflame that Themphi played across the ground. In time, he lowered the glass.

  Fissar took it from his shaking hands, and offered him a silver flagon.

  The mage drank, deeply, then relinquished it to his apprentice.

  Beyond the haze, Themphi could see the line of white stone, fissured and cracked. He also sensed fresh shoots of green ready to edge upward through the ashes, as they did in all places along the southern walls when the mages were not present. He tried not to think of the kay-wide stretch of new forest, more than waist high, sometimes man tall, that had grown along the north wall. All that despite the redoubled efforts provided by two journeymen and two apprentices, and three more companies of Mirror Foot. Despite his efforts and theirs, the Accursed Forest continued to threaten. If not for his efforts, would it reclaim all of eastern Cyador? “Not while I am here,” he murmured. “No.” Fissar opened his mouth, then closed it.

  The white mage sighed and closed his eyes, standing silent in the sun for a time before reopening those tired orbs and starting to walk westward toward the next section of green-infested ash.

  LXXXI

  HANGING JUST ABOVE the western horizon, the sun beat against the right side of Nylan’s face in the stillness that came with late afternoon or early evening-not that there was any real difference between the two in southern Lornth. Both were hot. Beneath him, the mare half-panted, half-whuffed. Swaying with the motion of the dark mare, the engineer rubbed his nose gently, trying to take away the itching from the gritty yellow dust-without rubbing it raw and bloody. Finally, nose
still itching, he forced his fingers away and looked eastward to rest his eyes and face from the glare of the sun, rather than in hopes of seeing anything. “Grass and more grass.”

  “Real grass is green, not faded brown,” suggested Ayrlyn as she rode to his right.

  On his left, Tonsar grunted or mumbled, but the engineer made no attempt to decipher the sound.

  A dozen of the more able levies rode behind the three, the last two leading the pair of packhorses bearing the catapult and the clay fire grenades. All rode quietly enough that the loudest sound was that of hoofs on the hard surface of the trail, a surface so dry and hard that not even the dust muffled the hoof impacts.

  Ayrlyn’s eyes glazed over, as they did periodically when she resorted to using the infrequent breezes and the upper winds to scout the land ahead.

  “That way,” she said abruptly, pointing to the right and toward a hill slightly higher than those around it.

  “The mines are ahead,” said Tonsar.

  “So is a Cyadoran patrol,” answered Ayrlyn.

  Nylan turned in the saddle. “Toward the hill there. Follow us.”

  A chorus of “yes, ser” followed the order. Nylan ignored Tonsar’s frown, even as he squinted into the almost-setting sun. At times, he didn’t feel like explaining, and Tonsar needed to realize that.

  The hill was farther than Nylan realized, and he began to look over his shoulder, but he saw neither dust nor riders. His eyes watered with the shift in vision from the glaring orange sun and the long shadows.

  As the levies reached the depression between the hills that led to the western side of the designated hill, a cloud of dust appeared on the southern horizon where the trail disappeared over a ridge.

  “A great many horses,” murmured Tonsar, “a great many.”

  “Discretion is the better part of valor,” said Ayrlyn, with a half-laugh.

  Nylan blotted his forehead, perpetually burned and raw, it seemed. At least the Grass Hills harbored few flying insects. Dust and grit and heat, but not much in the way of flies, mosquitoes, or the like.

  After having the levies dismount behind the hill, the three left their mounts and walked up the slope, a slope offering uncertain footing with dry slick grass and crumbling soil. From just behind the crest of the hill, the angels and Tonsar lay in the grass and watched as the dust rose out of the south along the trail they had been taking. The cloud of dust was a detachment of Cyadoran lancers-if as many as threescore riders could be called a detachment.

  Yet, even before the white forces reached the flat expanse where Ayrlyn had waved the squad off the road, the Cyadorans reined up, remaining stationary for some time, their white banners hanging limply in the windless afternoon heat.

  “What do they do?” whispered Tonsar. “If they rode a half kay farther, our tracks-”

  “Patrolling a perimeter of sorts—just to check things out,” Ayrlyn said. “They really don’t want to find anything-at least the officers leading this group don’t.”

  Nylan smiled faintly, wondering in how many times and places patrols and scouts had avoided discovering the unpleasant. He bet that the entire group had remained within a few kays of the mines-a perimeter patrol.

  “I wouldn’t want them after us,” Tonsar muttered. “With not even two squads here.”

  “Numbers won’t help us,” Nylan pointed out. “Not with something like score-fifteen or twenty mounted armsmen inside those, walls. And all of them bunked behind earthen walls.” Tonsar looked back toward the pack animals and frowned. After a time, almost as abruptly as they had appeared, the white troopers turned and rode back southward.

  “It is strange,” observed Tonsar. “Even Lewa would not be such a fool.” He looked at Nylan guiltily.

  “I won’t say anything, Tonsar, but I’d be careful around ser Fornal.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  “We’re less than four kays from the mines.” Ayrlyn stood and stretched after the last of the Cyadorans had vanished to the south. “We can move in slowly to the last line of hills before the mines, so long as we stay out of sight. Then we’ll set up, and after dark, the catapult team will ride down into that gully to the south of the walls. They won’t be looking at the south, not so much anyway. Tonsar, you’ll keep the rest of the squad ready to ride out at a moment’s notice.”

  “They may not even want to chase us, but we can’t count on that,” Nylan added. After dropping incendiary canisters where you intend to drop them? Are you deluding yourself? Even Fornal will be furious… but there isn’t any choice.

  Ayrlyn only raised her eyebrows, and Tonsar actually nodded.

  The three eased their way over the dry and slick grass and back to the rear of the hill and the waiting levies.

  “The whites turned back to the mines. It was just a patrol,” Nylan said.

  “We’ll head for where we’ll leave most of the armsmen,” Ayrlyn explained as she mounted. “It’s no more than four kays, if that.”

  A low groan, almost inaudible, greeted her announcement, but both angels ignored the sound, watching as the levies who were becoming armsmen mounted.

  Before they reached the base of the hills flanking the mines, the sun touched the horizon. As it dropped behind the western hills, a reddish orange glow spread across the brown of the grass hills, creating the impression that the hills were smoldering, like the banked coals of a forge.

  “Some day, this will be that hot,” predicted Ayrlyn, “like a forge or a furnace.”

  “It is already,” protested Nylan, half-standing in the stirrups and stretching his legs. His knees creaked. At least, that was the way they felt.

  “The ecology’s fading, and it’ll get worse.”

  Was she seeing visions, too, like Ryba? Nylan moistened his lips.

  “Not visions. Common sense.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It is hot,” Ayrlyn said. “Makes us jumpy.”

  After riding into a lower spot, sheltered from both the mines and the road, Ayrlyn reined up. “This is as good a spot as any.” Her voice was flat.

  “Stand down,” ordered Tonsar, his voice low, but firm. “And keep it quiet. The noise-it carries across the grass.”

  Reins still in one hand-there was nothing to tether the mare to-Nylan stretched out on the hard and dusty ground, ground that the dried grass did little to soften.

  Ayrlyn sat beside him. “You’re worried.”

  “Wouldn’t you be? We can’t reach most of their troops, not behind earth walls. What I’m planning won’t set well with anyone.” He sat up and shook his head. “But not doing it will ensure we lose, and before long. Damn honor, anyway.”

  “Do you ever think we’ll get away from this?” she asked. “I hope so, but I have my doubts. I’ve been thinking. It takes strength and power to manage a comfortable living away from society.”

  “But people make it harder,” she observed.

  “Do they? That assumes people are different from nature in a fundamental way, and I’m not so sure we are. Trees-”

  “Trees again?”

  “Trees want to grow and survive-or they act that way,” the smith continued. “So do animals. And when resources are limited, and they always are, those who have greater control of their environment survive. That’s usually power of some sort. I don’t know that you can escape it.”

  “So you want to be world ruler?” she asked dryly.

  “Hardly. Civilization has a tendency to smooth things out, where power isn’t so direct for people-but sometimes it’s even harder on the rest of the ecology. I wonder if there’s a way to get that smoothness, that balance, across the ecology without reducing people back to animals-”

  “It’s an interesting thought,” Ayrlyn said.

  “I know. But for now, we’ve got to reduce the power of a self-centered xenophobic culture that believes all other humans are barbarians and animals, and we’ll do it by becoming even more savage in warfare.” He sat up and shook his head. “Is it time to do the n
asty deed?”

  “Almost.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I do love you, you know. Part of that is because you are an engineer. You do try to find answers, even when it seems impossible. And you still care.” She gave his fingers a last squeeze and stood.

  He squeezed her hand back, then rolled over and up, brushing the dust off his trousers and shirt, far more stained than when Zeldyan had presented them.

  “Borsa, Vula? Do you have the pack animals ready?” Ayrlyn glanced at Nylan, who nodded in the dimness that was not quite full night.

  “Yes, ser.”

  “The canisters are ready, and so are the fuses and the striker,” added Nylan.

  “Let’s mount up, then,” ordered the redhead.

  “Tonsar,” Nylan said. “Stand by. When we head back here, we’ll need to be moving-immediately.”

  “Yes, ser.”

  Nylan swung into the saddle and glanced toward Ayrlyn.

  “You ready?” she asked in a lower voice. “I can see a bit, but-”

  “Ready.” Nylan’s night vision-another result of the Winterlance’s involuntary subspace transition from one universe to another-gave him a small advantage as he led the other three riders and the pack animals downhill toward the swale between the two hills. Beyond the swale was a narrow depression that might have been a stream or runoff channel in wetter years, and that channel led in a circling way around the west side of the semiplateau on which the mine complex stood, getting closer to the walls as it meandered south.

  An acrid odor drifted over the riders, and Nylan wrinkled his nose. The Cyadorans were clearly doing something with the mines. He glanced upward at the still unfamiliar pattern of stars-cold and clear even in the summer night’s heat.

  Once clear of the hills’ cover, the smith could see the yellow flickers of some type of watch lanterns on the walls, but their light only illuminated a few cubits of ground beyond the outer walls, and dimly at that.

  Slowly, slowly, the six horses walked through the darkness, carrying their four riders along the gully that circled south of the mine’s walls. Nylan could sense an occasional trembling of the ground. Were the Cyadorans working the mine shafts at night as well?