The Chaos Balance

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “If you can’t reach the one you need,” he murmured, “use the one you can reach.”

  Are you sure? asked a small voice.

  He shook his head, but sent his perceptions down, straight down, to where rock met magma, to where a different sort of order and chaos met. There, there he seized the deeper boundary, the edge between rock and magma.

  Do you want to do this? His jaw tightened. What choice did he have? He was too far from the forest and had too little time left. There is always a choice.

  Do what we must… Ayrlyn’s calm thought helped.

  With a sound between sob and cry, he cleft order and chaos, struggling to hold layers and layers of order between him and the raw white energy, especially between Ayrlyn and that energy.

  As they struggled, Ayrlyn adding her order, her force, yet another fireball sprayed the meadow, this time less than a hundred cubits before them. Nylan could feel his own hair crisping more, the heat of chaos fire washing over both him and Ayrlyn, their skin near burning from the chaos fire.

  Concentrate on your work… Ayrlyn’s calmness soothed the questions in his soul as he wedged chaos and order farther apart, building a channel up from the depths, a channel to the back side of the Cyadoran forces, even as he tried to create an order wall before their own armsmen.

  Not much good if you turn us into cinders.

  Ayrlyn coaxed and eased yet more of the black webs, the unseen black patterns, into that barrier.

  Whhssttt! Whsstt! Two fireballs in quick succession splashed against the unseen barrier, with the gouts of chaos fire rebounding toward the advancing Shining Foot.

  A half-score of white-coated foot flared like fatwood in a winter fire, and the line slowed, but only momentarily, before the Shining Foot surged forward once more, the second line of troops marching over the charred corpses of those who had led the charge.

  Whhhstt!

  The white mages continued to cast their fireballs, despite the barrier, despite the casualties to the advancing Shining Foot.

  The trumpets sounded again, and the heavy drumming of hoots rumbled the ground, nearer than ever before.

  Not yet! Nylan thought desperately. Not yet! His eyes opened involuntarily. The Cyadoran forces were nearly upon the Lornians, and Gethen’s blade was poised, raised.

  Nylan closed his eyes, tried to speed the rising globs of chaos, to open order channels, hundreds of them, and his forehead spewed sweat. His eyes were blind, unseeing, as all his efforts went into pressing order against chaos, against the power from the depths.

  But the Shining Foot surged northward, and the lancers pounded forward, toward the Lornians, toward them, toward Gethen, toward the chaos fields that had yet to rise where Nylan struggled to bring them into the open air.

  The engineer’s breath rasped from his laboring lungs and through his raw throat.

  “Make ready,” ordered Tonsar, his voice firm, far steadier than Nylan felt.

  Nylan reached, straining, for the slow-rising deep chaos.

  The Shining Foot to the left began to run, less than a dozen yards from Gethen’s forces, building speed.

  And still the demon-damned chaos seemed to float upward, ever so slowly, ignoring the straining, the order channels, and the need for its presence now.

  Nylan groaned, knives flashing through his skull, pressing order against chaos, chivying the energies upward, ignoring the nearness of the chaos, ignoring the shivering of the ground, and the fireballs that continued to fall across the field.

  Now…!

  CXLI

  THE MAJER SAW the white awning at the crest of the rise, barely a dozen cubits higher than the fields and meadows stretching east and north from where he sat astride the white stallion. With a glance at the still-forming lancers of the van, and the low and disorganized structures of the barbarians’ town beyond, he chucked the reins, then turned his mount toward the mages’ tent. Only one of the mages looked up as Piataphi reined in the stallion before the tent.

  “Greetings,” called Themphi.

  “Why all these preparations?” asked the majer. “There are few indeed to guard their town. It is not worth guarding, or would not be were it ours.” A grim smile creased his face. “Or are the barbarians more than you have admitted?”

  “Often matters are not as they seem, you may recall.” Triendar raised his head from the table and the screeing glass. “Did you ever find the fivescore Mirror Lancers who vanished?”

  “No.” The majer frowned, then glanced at the line of white mages that formed to the west of the small, open-sided tent. “You know that.”

  “We do,” said the white-haired magician, an edge to his words. “That is why these mages gather here. Each is assigned to a unit and will use firebolts on your enemy.”

  “Just make sure that they don’t flame ours.”

  “They won’t.” Triendar smiled coldly. “You command your men, and I will command mine.”

  Piataphi finally nodded his head brusquely when neither mage offered more. Then he raised his sabre in salute, and rode toward the left flank where the First Mirror Lancers waited for their commander.

  After the majer departed, Triendar surveyed the line of white mages. “Once the horns for the advance are sounded, you will use your firebolts to destroy the barbarians directly before your assigned units. You will use your fire until the enemy is no more. You will not use fire if it will kill our armsmen. Is that clear?”

  A series of nods punctuated the line of white-clad men.

  “Go.”

  Triendar watched as the mages mounted and rode toward their separate units in the postdawn light.

  “What do we do?” asked Themphi. Behind him, Fissar swallowed nervously.

  “We watch for the mages who destroyed the lancers before. We must destroy them.” Triendar frowned and concentrated on the glass, In the middle of the white mists appeared a man and a woman. The man had shimmering silver hair, the woman hair like flame.

  “Angels. Just two, not three.”

  “But they fought Lornth,” protested Themphi.

  “They have always hated those of the Rational Stars,” pointed out the older mage. “They are not rational.”

  “Obviously. They sought the Accursed Forest.”

  The two white mages watched the angels in the glass, the only two figures on the Lornian side who were dismounted, though surrounded by a squad of armsmen who glanced nervously from side to side.

  “Still, they do nothing,” murmured Themphi.

  “They do more than nothing. They are reaching beneath the ground. Perhaps they are earth mages, save I have never heard of such.”

  The Cyadoran horn calls echoed across the flat, and the sound of marching foot followed.

  A series of fireballs arced toward the north side of the Lornian forces and exploded. Triendar offered a quick smile that faded. A satisfactory series of screams ensued, and Themphi nodded.

  In the glass, the male angel winced, staggered.

  “Send a fireball toward the angels,” ordered Triendar.

  Themphi frowned, concentrated, and a whitish globe formed and accelerated northward, plowing into the ground and casting flame toward the angels.

  Both angels stepped back. Triendar smiled, but the smile vanished as a wall of flame seared up in front of the advancing Mirror Foot.

  “How?” The older mage snapped, “No matter. Another firebolt.”

  A huge firebolt arced deliberately toward the angels, and both stepped back. A barbarian armsman beside the angels beat out flames that had spread across his sleeve.

  A series of smaller bolts cracked across the morning sky. More Lornian mounts and their riders flamed and fell.

  “Another.”

  Themphi wiped his forehead and concentrated, then staggered as the ground shifted underfoot.

  “… they can’t do that, can’t keep doing it, anyway,” muttered Triendar. “More fire.”

  The younger mage swallowed.

  The horn calls
redoubled, and the Mirror Lancers charged.

  A firebolt exploded in midair, well short of the enemy.

  Driblets of sweat beaded on Triendar’s forehead. “They can’t.”

  More firebolts splatted short of the enemy, some recoiling upon the Cyadoran forces.

  Both mages exchanged glances, and the mirror blanked. The ground shivered, shuddered, and seemed to swell beneath their feet.

  Themphi sensed the growing force, glanced at the glass on the table and threw himself prone, yelling, “Down!”

  Triendar frowned and opened his mouth. The earth rolled, and the older mage grasped for the table to steady himself. The glass on the white-framed table exploded. Triendar shuddered, then collapsed across the table, blood welling across shattered glass and white splintered wood.

  The ground heaved, and plumes of molten rock and sulfurous fumes rose, shrouding the sun, before the quick-forming clouds above cut off even more light. The screeing table collapsed under the dead weight of the white-haired mage.

  Beyond the tent, the ground heaved, shivered, cracked, and then opened with a groan.

  Themphi crawled to his knees, trying to stand, when another heaving of the ground cast him facedown into the dust.

  “An earth mage. Who would have thought…” Themphi’s last words were lost as the wave of rock and soil cascaded down across the tent.

  CXLII

  THE MAJER RODE from the mages’ tent toward the van on the right. His eyes slowly scanned the vast semicircle of arrayed Cyadoran troops, from the Shining Foot to the Mirror Lancers between foot companies.

  “Never so many,” he murmured. “Never foot companies.”

  “Majer!”

  Piataphi turned in the saddle.

  Captain Azarphi raised an arm in salute.

  The majer eased his mount toward Azarphi, who waited before a double squad of white lancers.

  “You are still to lead the first charge?” asked the younger officer.

  “His Mightiness’s orders have not changed,” answered Piataphi.

  “They never do.” Azarphi’s voice was low. “They never will.”

  “No.” Piataphi’s response was as bleak as the grayness in his eyes.

  “You think this is worse than the mines, don’t you?” Azarphi shook his head. “There aren’t that many of them, and we’ve crushed them every time.”

  Piataphi forced a smile. “We have. And the powers of Whiteness willing, we will again.”

  “I’ll see you with the spoils of this barbarian land, even a willing wench!” answered Azarphi with a wide grin.

  Piataphi returned the smile. “I’d best be where I’m supposed to be.” With a nod, he urged the white stallion northward and past the Shining Foot.

  The serjeant raised his blade as the majer reined up. “Van squads ready, ser.”

  “Good.” Piataphi turned his mount and studied the field once more. The seemingly small Lornian force was drawn up in four squares, with gaps between each, clearly stretching to avoid being immediately encircled.

  “They’ll have to draw together, won’t they?” asked the serjeant behind and to Piataphi’s left.

  “I don’t know what they’ll do,” answered the majer. “They don’t fight the way they used to.”

  “Pity. It was easier that way. It hasn’t been that bad, though.”

  Piataphi nodded, then frowned. Between the second and third Lornian groups was a small squad. Two dark figures stood on the ground, and the mounted squad reformed before them.

  “What’s that?” questioned the serjeant.

  “Mages. Black mages. We leave those for our mages.”

  “Fine with me, ser.”

  The horns rang out from the center of the arc, and the odd-numbered Shining Foot moved forward, heavy steps measured, in time, and the rhythm of their steps rose over the scattered murmurs of the Cyadorans. Light flashed from the polished shields, reflections cascading across the outnumbered Lornians.

  A single fireball arched from somewhere behind Piataphi and crashed into the dusty ground well back from the Lornians. The defenders did not move, even as three more fireballs flared across the skies and burned their way nearly to the waiting barbarians.

  The second set of horn signals bugled across the field.

  The majer surveyed his squad, then lifted his blade. “To the right center!”

  “To the right!” echoed the serjeant.

  Ahead of him, Piataphi could see another wave of fireballs, and these hissed down on the rightmost square of the defenders. Bodies flared like oil torches, their screams lost in the thunder of hoofs.

  His eyes went to his left, toward the black mages. Had one fallen? No matter, one way or the other. His enemies lay before him.

  The ground rumbled and swayed beneath the stallion’s hoofs, and the majer’s knees pressed more tightly, holding his seat as he gestured with the blade. “Forward! Now!”

  He urged the stallion into full canter, feeling the backwash of heat from the white fireballs.

  “Fry us as well…” came from behind him.

  His squad was almost abreast the Shining Foot to his right, when the trumpets sounded once more, and the foot picked up the charge toward the waiting Lornians.

  Piataphi smiled grimly.

  Another set of fireballs arched overhead, so close that the majer could feel the heat picked up by his raised blade.

  “No!”

  The white fires splattered on an unseen shield, and flowed/splashed back toward the lancers and the nearer foot. Piataphi spurred the stallion into a leap over the low rolling clingfire, holding to his seat even with the jolting landing.

  “Here! The lancers!” He turned the white back right, charging toward the outnumbered Lornians, blade again ready.

  The ground lurched beneath him.

  Fires, like red trees with flaming arms that grasped toward him, flared in a line between him and his lancers and the defenders. Heat, more intense than a furnace, hotter than the worse conflagration at the mines, welled around him.

  Automatically, his blade went up in salute to the unknown mages, then vanished, as did the stallion and the bitter smile that was the majer’s last expression.

  CXLIII

  … AND CHAOS BURST into the air, with dark dust, and the odor of brimstone, and the heat of furnaces stoked by the hearts of stars.

  Nylan and Ayrlyn stood. Legs unsteady against the ground that surged beneath them, they stood.

  The earth heaved like a chaos-fevered giant, and dust surged from every crevice. Gouts of fire flared irregularly from the hills and plains. Behind them, in Rohrn, even the lowest and rudest buildings swayed, and roofs sank and crumpled between splayed walls.

  Farther north and east as well, as far east as Henspa, as far north as Carpa, houses, buildings, shuddered, and some fell. Others were etched with cracks across white plaster and stucco.

  Soil flowed like water, in places swallowing grass, in places bursting forth like a muddy tide, slow-splashing across once-cultivated fields and once-grazed meadows.

  The link with Cyador, prompted Ayrlyn. Now! Do it deep.

  Deep? Of course. Nylan almost laughed as he reached deep, then sent his probes deep and south, as he could feel that intertwining of the forest reaching for what he fed, for what he channeled. And the forest swelled, and order-chaos tendrils swept and strengthened themselves beneath all Cyador, beneath the new rivers and the old, beneath the old hills and the new, beneath the towns of order built on chaos. And Cyador trembled… yet held against the forces Nylan and Ayrlyn raised.

  Whhsttt! Whhstt! Whhstt!

  Three fireballs slammed against the order barrier beyond the Lornian forces, rebounding into the charging white lancers. The tall force leader on the white stallion somehow dodged the firespray, still leading his force toward the outnumbered Lornians.

  To the right of the struggling angels, a black-garbed figure raised a blade, and tenscore armsmen galloped toward the other company of oncoming Mirror
Lancers. Lances of reflected light played across the Lornians, and some raised hands to be able to see against the glare.

  “Frig…” muttered the engineer, trying to twist the rising gouts of order to separate the two forces, realizing he could not stop the fires that would strike Fornal and his men, not with the forces already unleashed and rising. “Frig…”

  Chaos fire burst from the ground, not in a line, but like a forest of fire trees. Like a forest, like a forest. The fire trees lifted the charging Lornians and the lancers on both sides of the black angels, strewing them like harvested grain, like stalks scythed, black-crisped instantly, and cast aside as fast-dispersing dust.

  The tall Mirror Lancer officer raised his blade, even as he was no more, as man and horse crumbled into scattered and powdered charcoal.

  Nylan sensed the death all around, closer, more immediate. Absently, the engineer winced, even as he knew the first two companies of white lancers had been turned into charcoal, and that Fornal was no more. The Lornian regent might have survived, had he waited.

  The tripled notes of the Cyadoran battle orders echoed forth once more, and yet another line of Mirror Lancers heeded the horn calls. The ground vibrated again, as their mounts threw them toward the Lornian lines and the angels who struggled there. The horses charged toward the fire trees of order-bounded chaos. For a moment, but a moment, the white livery and shimmering shields threw back chaos, before the horses and Mirror Lancers flared into blackened figures that rose, and fell, crumbling like towers of finely powdered charcoal.

  Another set of chaos fireballs splatted against the unseen order barrier.

  The engineer’s legs wobbled, and he sat down, still struggling to hold order and focus the deep chaos on the remainder of the Cyadoran forces, forces so numerous, numerous like the grasses of the plains.

  But wildfire takes grasses.

  With a groan, he/she visualized/coaxed/shaped the raging deep chaos into a wildfire, chevied by order winds, sweeping south and west from Lornth, incinerating all in its path, turning all above the ground into cinders and fine ash.