Recluce Tales

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

I just looked at it.

  That night I tried to work on the door, using the same approach.

  I got so faint that I passed out on the stone floor and woke in the darkness. It didn’t seem as dark as it had before, but I didn’t see any more lamps or a moon shining through the bars of the window.

  I barely managed to get back to the pallet bed before I dropped off again.

  I didn’t sleep long, because a silvery light flooded the cell, and Chief Mangrum appeared. His face was blistered and black on one side, and I could see his jawbone where the flesh had fallen away there. His working khakis were half-burned off, and the odor of smoke and burning fuel filled the cell. Where were you? Did you cop out again? Look for the easy way out?

  I didn’t have an answer.

  His eyes burned as he looked at me. Cop-out, that’s all you’ll ever be.

  He had to be an illusion, but the words burned into me.

  Mangrum’s image twisted into something else—a silver-haired woman garbed in silver. She stood beside the base of a massive tree that impossibly rose out of the cell and into the shadows of a forest mightier than any rain forest.

  Order and chaos are twisted within you, for you come from order through chaos. You must face your fears and choose.

  I didn’t want anyone insisting I choose something when I didn’t know what I was choosing.

  You know enough to choose.

  “Choose what?”

  That is what you must decide.

  Her image vanished, and that of Mangrum re-appeared. Flames surrounded him, and the heat and the odor of burning jet fuel was everywhere. You left us. Deserter! His khakis were in flames, and the heat and odor of fire rose until the cell was like an oven. Or even hotter. A flaming glob of oil flew past me and hit the wall by the window, where it continued to burn. Deserter! Cop-out!

  “I had no choice.”

  You could have been an ET … you should have been on that deck …

  I should have been, but that had not been my choice or my doing.

  Mangrum’s finger jabbed toward me, and I held up my good hand instinctively.

  Hsstt! His finger burned my palm, and I stepped back.

  Coward! Deserter!

  I forced myself to step forward. His hands grasped my wrists, and for an instant, pain and fire ringed both wrists.

  Then he vanished, only to be replaced by Sheriff Shanklin, as much taller than I was as he had been when I’d been a child. Boy … you aren’t going to be making trouble, now, are you? You wouldn’t be wanting trouble for your family, would you? His smirking smile was overpowering, and he held the ivory-handled revolver he’d always claimed had been given to him by General Patton.

  Before I could move, the revolver barrel had clipped my forehead.

  You’re not worth a bullet, boy. No, you’re not. The smirk was even more open.

  What was the right answer, the right choice? I stepped forward. “Force doesn’t change what’s right, Sheriff. Threats don’t make something right.”

  This time, my hand was moving before the revolver barrel was, and I caught it. I didn’t stop it. Instead, the barrel kept swinging and threw me into the wall beside the window. I hit hard enough that I didn’t feel anything for a moment. I did think that dreams didn’t hurt the way I’d been hurt. Not any dream I’d ever had.

  It is not a dream. The woman in silver appeared, still standing beside the tree. This world is as real as yours. You have faced some of your fears. Now, you must find the will and the way for both of you to escape. Or you will die here as certainly as the man in the fire died in the world from which you came.

  With that, she vanished.

  Most of my back ached. The pain had returned to my wounded shoulder. My wrists were blistered, and so was the spot in the center of my palm. The cell reeked of fire, smoke, and burning fuel oil.

  VII

  I had to sleep on my side, and only on one side. I didn’t sleep well, and I was up early, as soon as the first light seeped through the barred windows. Then, I just sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to think about how many places on my body hurt.

  Right after the guards half-pushed, half-flung Kytrona into the cell, she stiffened and looked around. Then she wrinkled her nose. “It smells like a fire in here. A strange fire.”

  “Burning fuel oil.”

  She looked at me questioningly. “Your face is red, and your hair is singed. There are gashes on your forehead.”

  I shrugged. “Long night.” How could I possibly explain?

  “All nights are long.” Her eyes were almost accusatory. “The guards—”

  “No. Not the guards.” I pointed to the wall where the glob of burning fuel oil had seared the stone. She walked over and looked at it. Then she looked at me once more. I could feel her worry and puzzlement. “It was fire, but you are not of chaos.”

  “Last night … there was … a man who was … above me … he was … on fire … and then a woman in silver … with silver hair…”

  “An angel of the Ancients—she came to you … here?”

  “She said … I had to choose,” I admitted.

  “She came here?” Kytrona asked again. “You had to face the fire of chaos?”

  That was one way of putting it. “There was fire.”

  She nodded slowly, then sat on the stool and began to talk. “They say that all the great mages must face a trial, and they must confront their greatest fears. They are never the same after that, although they do not look any different, except in their eyes.” She paused. “I have never looked into your eyes.” She said that almost like a confession before she turned to me.

  Abruptly, she looked away.

  “I’m … sorry,” I said. I just hoped it was the right word.

  “You have no need to apologize.”

  “You looked away.”

  She gave me the faintest smile, then shook her head. “It is not you. It is me.” But she would not say more.

  At that moment, I could sense the faint black tie or link between us. It was stronger, or at least clearer. Was that because I could sense it better, or because we were more linked?

  “You need more words,” Kytrona said, but she pointed to the door.

  After that, we worked on words, and I kept trying to re-order the oak.

  That night, I knew I had to do something more, and I struggled with the wood of the heavy oak door, trying to move the strength of the door away from the hinges and lock and into the center.

  I kept at it until I almost passed out, and I didn’t wake until it was full light.

  When I got up, I examined the inside of the heavy door. Had I really accomplished anything? I thought I could detect a whiteness around the iron straps and hinges. I pressed my fingers there. The wood did give some, but not enough to tear away from the iron. I couldn’t help but smile for a brief moment.

  Before that long, Kytrona was shoved into my cell. She had not been abused more, but she looked exhausted.

  “Are you … good?”

  “I’m fine.” She offered a tired smile. “We need to work on more words.” Her eyes flicked toward the door.

  I realized that I could sense two figures outside the cell. I held up two fingers and nodded toward the door.

  Her mouth opened. Then she shut it. For perhaps the first time, I saw hope in her eyes. She swallowed, then began to speak. “This is a door.” She pointed to the iron. “These are made of iron…”

  Not until the listeners left did I say anything but repeat her words.

  “I … make the door strong here … less strong here…” When she didn’t seem to understand what I was saying, I took her hand and pressed her fingers against the rock-hard center of the door, and then guided them to the softer wood around the iron. I didn’t want to let go of her hand, but I did.

  “It needs more work,” she said, stepping away from me and the door.

  I nodded. “But…” How could I explain that if I made it weak enough and if the guard stood rig
ht outside we could push it over on him? “We push it…” I acted out what we could do.

  She tilted her head to one side, as if thinking, then nodded. “That would work.”

  I kept working on the door while she talked, and I repeated words. That went on for another two days. When the guards pushed Kytrona into the cell three mornings later, I actually held the door to support it. I’d done my best to leave the area around the lock and outside hasp stronger.

  While she talked, and I tried to repeat her words, I concentrated on moving the black order from around the lock. I had to stop several times, because I got light-headed, and it was into the afternoon when I began to sense that the door was sagging on both its lock plate and hinges.

  “Now…” I pointed to the door.

  “We need to get the guard here,” she said. “Can you tell when he’s close to the door?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me know when he’s near.”

  How long that took, I didn’t know, but it seemed like forever before I could sense the guard and said, “He’s close.”

  Abruptly, Kytrona began to moan, loudly, even while she stood on the lock side of the door. I stood by the hinges, waiting as the guard moved toward the door.

  When he was as close as he could get, peeping through the small hole in the center of the door, I said, “Now.”

  We pushed, and the heavy door ripped away from the hinges and lock. The guard scrambled back. I thought the door would bring him down, but the wood around the bottom hinge hung on and swung away from him. That didn’t stop Kytrona.

  The guard stared. He was frozen for a moment, and in that moment, she leaped on him, kneed him in the groin, and then slammed the iron cuffs upward into his chin so hard that his head snapped back, and he went down on the stone with a dull thud. Before I could scramble around the section of the door that hung on the lower hinge, she’d taken his belt knife and slit his throat.

  With what I knew she’d been through, I didn’t blame her.

  She rose, and slipped the knife into the empty sheath at her belt. Then she unfastened the guard’s scabbard and fastened it to her belt—with the sabre in it.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “We wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “The head guard will come.” She raised her chained hands. “He has keys.”

  Outside of a U.S. Navy bolt-cutter that didn’t exist in Worrak, or a blacksmith, I didn’t see any other way of getting the chains off her.

  “This way.” Kytrona led the way to the bottom of the stone steps, holding the sabre in her right hand, her left hand all too close to it because of the chains. There, we waited, each of us concealed on opposite sides of the stone arch.

  We waited until the light began to fail before we heard boots on the stone. The only problem was that the head guard didn’t come down the stairs alone. He came down first, but behind and above him several steps was another man. The second man radiated white—Guillum.

  I didn’t know what to say, and anything I said to Kytrona would alert the white mage.

  The head guard had just reached the bottom of the steps and stepped through the archway when Guillum yelled, “Look out!”

  The head guard turned, and Kytrona’s sabre went into his side. He staggered toward me.

  Whhssst! A firebolt whizzed past my face, then another … and another, as the mage ran down the steps and toward the arch.

  I grabbed the wounded guard. When I sensed that Guillum was about to throw another of the firebolts, I shoved the guard at the mage and flattened myself behind the back side of the archway.

  The sound of the firebolt and the scream of the guard as the fire struck him merged. The sound was appalling and—thankfully—brief.

  Somehow, Kytrona had followed the guard’s body and used the sabre on the mage. Whiteness and fire flared around the blade, and I could smell burned hair.

  Two bodies lay on the stone. One was blackened. The other was not a young man, but a wizened old man. He didn’t look at all the way he had moments before.

  I just looked.

  “Chaos ages one.” Kytrona pulled a key ring off the dead guard’s belt and fumbled with the key.

  One key stood out. I pointed, then helped her unlock the cuffs. Her wrists were scabbed and bloody. I couldn’t help but squeeze her forearm gently, wishing I could heal all she had been through.

  “You are…” She shook her head.

  “What next?”

  “This way. We find a way to escape from the keep and get to the harbor. We steal a fishing boat and head west. If we are fortunate, someone picks us up. If not, we sail to Ruzor. Or we do not.”

  The first two possibilities were probably okay. The third wasn’t, and it was the most likely, but staying in Gaylmassen’s pile of stone would be even worse. “What about the screams?”

  “There are always screams from down here.” She started up the stairs. The sabre was back in the scabbard.

  Gaylmassen’s keep wasn’t really a castle, but more like a fortified house. It would have been dramatic to say that we had to fight our way out. We didn’t. We sneaked out through the kitchen bailey. Along the way, several attendants scattered away from us. Gaylmassen was nowhere near, but that was fine with me. I didn’t need to confront him in order to prove I wasn’t taking the easy way out. There is a difference between necessary courage and stupid bravado. Papaw had known that, and now I understood.

  In the darkness, it was even easier to steal a boat, but I had to row us clear of the harbor, and that took much of the night. Once we were outside the breakwater, there was a breeze, and Kytrona knew enough to set the single sail. I didn’t even try to explain that I knew nothing about sailing.

  VIII

  The next morning we were almost a mile offshore, and Worrak lay out of sight to the east of us. The sun beat down like a furnace all that day, and we managed to use a scrap of sail as an awning of sorts, probably the same way the boat owner had.

  Kytrona finally looked to me. “I did not think we would ever escape. Thank you.”

  I could feel gratitude and something more. I hoped it was more, but I could not act on such a feeling, not until she and I were free, and she could choose without conditions.

  Her mouth dropped open. “You are honorable, like an angel.”

  “No,” I said. “We wouldn’t have escaped without you.”

  She frowned, as if she didn’t believe me.

  “If you had not explained about order, I would not have learned enough…”

  “I wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you,” she went on. “I still don’t know much about you or where you come from. Tell me. We have time, now.”

  “From Earth…”

  “From the ground?”

  “Another … place … we were fighting a fire in the Forrestal … one of the attack birds dropped a rocket, and it armed…” For a lot of the words, I had to use English, but she listened. I didn’t know how much she understood.

  “What is this Forrestal?”

  I tried to explain a bird-farm.

  “You come from where the Ancient angels came?”

  I was definitely no ancient, ancient or modern, or whenever or wherever Recluce might be. “No.”

  “But the Book of Ryba speaks of iron ships that flew between the stars.”

  Between the stars? That was even scarier. When was I?

  “You have to be like an angel. You still grope for words, but you speak without an accent, and everyone not born in Recluce has an accent.”

  I tried to get across that I was no angel and that CVA-59 had not flown between stars. I could feel that Kytrona was still impressed by the “iron birds”—that was the best I could do with what I knew of Low Temple.

  Two days passed, and we talked and sailed some distance west of Worrak, which was the only direction we could go, because that was the direction the wind blew us. While we had taken some water bottles, they were long empty, and Kytrona was trying to steer
us back inshore, now that we were well away from Worrak. We’d seen several ships in the distance, but none close enough to hail.

  “We can’t get picked up if we’re too close to shore, but we need water,” Kytrona said.

  My lips were cracked, but not so badly as hers. I just nodded.

  “It’s too bad you can’t call a storm the way the weather mages can.” She smiled. It was more like a grimace.

  I had to wonder if such mages existed. If I could weaken a heavy solid-oak door, then I supposed they could call a storm, but I had no idea how, and neither did Kytrona.

  Then she pointed. A ship was headed eastward in our general direction. She swung the sail, and we turned seaward. For a time, nothing seemed to happen. Then, all of a sudden, the ship was bearing down on us. She was a wooden-hulled steamer, but the engines were clearly shut down. Her three masts were filled with sails.

  Kytrona stood. I sat.

  “She’s bearing the Ryall. It’s a Recluce merchanter!”

  For some reason, I had very mixed feelings about the approaching ship.

  Before that long, a seaman threw us a line, but the ship barely slowed. Kytrona tied the line to an iron ring attached to the stem post. Then the crew reeled us in until we were alongside. They even lowered a ladder. Kytrona climbed up first. That was a good idea, since I wouldn’t be able to explain much of anything.

  Once we were on deck, a slender but tall man wearing the same black clothes as Kytrona moved toward us. He smiled broadly. “Kytrona! We feared everyone on the Black Holding was lost.” Then he stepped forward and threw his arms around her.

  I tried not to wince. She hadn’t promised me anything, and I was a stranger from nowhere, so far as she was concerned.

  “Alaren…” Kytrona stepped back, out of his arms, and gestured to me. “This is Cassius. He’s an outland black mage, and he’s the one who saved me from Gaylmassen. He showed up on board the Black Holding.”

  I bowed politely. “It is good to meet you.”

  “It’s good to meet the man who saved Kytrona.” Alaren eyed me with open curiosity, although he had to look up some, then glanced to Kytrona, questioningly.

  “The Ancient of angels has tried him and found him worthy. He will be a great mage.” She smiled warmly—at me. “Even if She had not tested him, he would still be my intended.”