I should have seen it. No matter how good she was with a blade, no matter how smart and mature, a woman would not have ended up as the number-two officer in a kingdom’s military force in little more than a year unless the losses were horrendous or the talent pool small. I suspected both.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do what I can.” I meant that not just for Krystal or for me, but because of what the people around us represented-the struggle against an old chaotic rule and an attempt at… I didn’t exactly know how or why, but what I saw accorded with my idea of what order should be, not necessarily what Talryn or Recluce thought of as order.
“Thank you.”
“Commander, why were the road-patrol rotations changed yesterday?” asked a young man with a scraggly yellow mustache.
“That’s because…”
“Commander, will there be additional mounts…”
“Commander, how do we get the duty rotation…”
“Commander…”
I edged away, letting Krystal deal with the guards who approached, marveling at her patience and understanding.
Yelena walked in carrying a long leather tube. I gestured to her, and commandeered a near-empty table.
“Do you have one that shows the border beyond the Southbrook?”
After sifting through the parchments, she laid an older map on the table, smoothing it out. Some of the mountains were named, and the road line matched what I remembered, but the pattern of the peaks was not complete.
I measured roughly, thought, and measured.
Finally, I noted an area. “In this area, and it runs due east and west…” I tried to describe the thin valley that she should be able to see beyond the illusions, and what the road looked like, and how the long-gone wizards of Frven had planed off the sides of mountains to build their roads. But they had used order as well, somehow. Chaos to destroy the mountains and to create the hidden road valleys, and order to reinforce the stonework and the bridges.
“Can you pass that on to someone else?” asked Krystal.
I hadn’t realized she had stood behind us.
“I think so,” responded Yelena. “You still want me to escort the order-master?”
“If you would find that acceptable.”
Yelena nodded. “How many, and when do we leave?”
“Two plus yourself.” Krystal looked to me for the second answer.
“Shortly. The sooner we leave, the sooner…” I didn’t know what would be sooner, or even what exactly I might discover, but all of us were running out of time.
“Where are we headed?” asked Yelena.
Explaining that took a bit longer, and more struggle with the maps, but there was an old road that looked like it went where I wanted and, if the maps were correct, joined with the old main central pass road that led to Sarronnyn. That was the road that no one took any longer because they never seemed to arrive on the other side of the Westhorns.
Finally, I looked up. “That’s the best I can do.”
“Yelena?”
“It will be interesting, commander.”
Interesting-that was one way of putting it.
“Well… I guess I’ll get Gairloch.”
“What… do you have a mount?”
“Oh… Gairloch is in the stables by the gate.”
“We will meet you there.” Yelena inclined her head to Krystal. “Honor, commander.”
“Honor, leader.”
I followed Krystal from the mess into the main guard yard, where we stopped in an open space.
“Make sure you’re doing this for yourself, Lerris.”
I shook my head. “Nothing’s that simple.”
“I guess not.” She smiled with her mouth, not her eyes. “Then, try to do it mostly for your reasons.”
“I’ll do what I must, and we’ll sort out the reasons later. All right?”
She nodded. “Fair enough. I won’t say to take care. But… do come back to sort out those reasons.”
I wet my lips, feeling the cool wind chill them as I did. With all that I felt, there was little to say. “Until later.”
“Until later.”
I looked down, then back into her black eyes, seeing the tiredness again.
She raised her hand in a gesture that was part benediction, part salute, and I inclined my head to her, then turned while I could. I did not look back, but kept my eyes fixed on the building that was the stable.
Yelena and two others waited, already mounted, as I walked up with my staff and pack.
“Where’s your pass?” demanded the ostler.
“Oh, hell…” I had never bothered to get anyone to sign the damned parchment square. “Just a moment.”
“Leader Yelena?”
“Yes, order^master?”
“I forgot to have the sub-commander autograph this pass.”
“Autograph?”
I kept from shaking my head at the brown-haired sub-officer with the long nose and square chin. “A pass to release my horse.”
“Pheww on a pass! Get your horse.” She rode into the stable in front of me.
“… on official business for the Sub-Commander. None of this crap about passes!”
The ostler was backing into a corner as Yelena threatened to ride him down.
I ignored them both and quickly saddled Gairloch, recovering my saddlebags in the process.
The ostler swallowed as I rode out. “Good… day… order-master…”
“Good day.” My tone was not totally cheerful. I hadn’t wanted to pay for the stable, since my stock of coinage was scarcely deep, and having to ask for Yelena’s assistance bothered me.
“That’s a horse?” asked the sub-officer.
“No, this is Gairloch. You don’t think I could really ride one of those monsters you use, do you?” I grinned at the dour officer.
“Glad you recognize it, order-master.” I almost fell off Gairloch when she smiled back.
The other two looked at each other and kept their mouths closed as we rode out through the gates into Kyphrien.
Even in the gray drizzle that had begun to fall, the city was light-whitewashed walls, red tile roofs, and limestone- or marble-paved streets. People talked, like a city of hundreds of Shervans.
“… best breads in Kyphros, by exclusive patronage of the autarch…”
“… and you could have crossed the river barefoot, he drank so much. Never have I seen an animal drink so much, and beyond that…”
“Your fortune, not even a copper! Who will grudge a mere copper for knowing all that will befall you.”
“Hezira, I said, there’s to be none of that. No, none of that, Hezira-that’s what I told her, but, of course, she didn’t listen. Why would she listen, with her high house and her silk gowns?…”
I eased Gairloch closer to Yelena. “Is it always this noisy?”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s usually noisier. This is early. It gets louder later.”
“Look at the pony! See the pony, Berrna! He must be a northern pony. He’s so shaggy…”
Outside of the autarch’s walled residence-not really a castle or even a palace-and the associated guard area, Kyphrien was an open and unwalled city, where the houses and businesses scattered farther and farther apart as we headed north and west toward the Westhorns I could not see. There never was a point at which I could have said Kyphrien ended and the countryside began, but we were on another gently rolling road even before mid-morning.
The drizzle had damped the dust, but not yet turned it into mud. Gairloch matched the pace set by the brown gelding carrying Yelena without seeming to strain, and we traveled through the morning without talking, which was fine with me, especially after the hubbub that had been Kyphrien.
Yet I liked the country, found it friendly, even if it were not as lush as Gallos or even Recluce. The spareness of the colder and rolling hills, which steepened within kays to the northwest of Kyphrien, appealed to me. I even noted several locations that would have been id
eal for setting up my own woodworking-with streams high enough for a water supply, not far from the road, and with ample and varied timber within carting distance. I shook my head-planning to be a workworker, still? Uncle Sardit would surely have laughed. How well he had wrought he did not know. Or maybe he did, and I was the one who didn’t know.
Thoughts of working wood would have to wait. If I could deal somehow with Antonin… if…
I cast my thoughts back over my last encounter-the one with the white wizard-recalling how I had fought with the staff to control my defenses and my energies. What had that meant?
There had been something in the book… something… I could not recall it, but made a mental note to look it up.
Midday found us halting beside a stream that bordered the road, but we did not actually cross it.
“That’s not really a bridle,” noted the young man who had followed behind me. “How do you control him in a pinch?”
“I never thought about it.” I pulled out some hard white cheese and offered him a piece.
Wheeee… eeee…
Yelena was watering her horse, and, deciding that Gairloch was thirsty as well, I looped the reins over the saddle and thwacked him on the flank, watching as he ambled into the water ankle-deep.
The soldier had taken the cheese, but he looked away suddenly as Gairloch left me.
The other trooper, a woman probably my own age, with short sandy hair and green eyes, surprisingly dark skin, and a ragged scar running across most of her right cheek, stepped closer.
“Cheese?” I offered.
“Thank you.” Her voice was simultaneously grave and cheerful. “Are you… the… order-master?…”
I grinned. Why not? “I’m Lerris. Yes, I’m the one from Recluce who knew the sub-commander. She’s my friend.”
Her eyebrows rose, and I could imagine the stories already circulating through the guard.
“In addition to being a blademaster,” I added, “she is also a lady. And my friend.”
“I didn’t mean…” I waved her apology off. “Rumors are rumors. I care for the lady a lot, but that’s all until we have done what has to be done. Then we’ll see.”
“Are all the men from Recluce like you?”
“… Aaaccccuuu…” I almost choked on the cheese. “… No. Probably none of them are as dense as I am.”
“The order-master is joking, Freyda,” interrupted Yelena. Her voice was cold, but her eyes were smiling. “You’d better water your horse. We’re not stopping that long. You, too, Weldein.”
When the two were out of earshot, the sub-officer looked at me. “You’re more dangerous than you look.” But she was almost smiling.
I shrugged. “I can’t not tell the truth, and that makes it difficult.”
“You can’t?”
“Not without paying for it somehow.”
She was the one to shake her head. “I’m glad I’m just a leader.”
As I reclaimed Gairloch and fed him some corners of a grain cake, I thought about what she said. I had to agree with her. The more I learned and the more I could do, the more complex it got.
LXIII
KYPHROS WAS BIGGER than I thought. The way the West-horns angled westward as they marched south meant that we had to ride two days to reach the foothills that almost matched the Little Easthorns in size.
I had guessed that at some point the road, since it was an older road, would cross the wizards’ road for which I searched. I didn’t know that, but it seemed right.
The first night we actually stayed in a small inn in a town-Upper River. Why it was called Upper River, no one knew, and Yelena’s maps showed neither Lower River, nor even a stream called Upper River. The inn was clean. That was about all. Dinner was overcooked goat steaks smothered in a strong cheese. The beds sagged, and I shared a room with Weldein, who by then was scared stiff of me, although I had said nothing, and who snored loudly.
The second night we stopped in a place called Quessa. Lodging was in one of the soldiers’ way stations there, but staffed only by a couple. I could guess where the soldiers were. The dinner meal was another spicy casserole, followed by a huge fruitcream pie-much better fare than at the inn at Upper River.
Quessa itself was fair-sized for the relatively isolated area in which it stood, with more than a score of houses and stores serving the surrounding farms and orchards. The people were still what I thought of as Kyphran stock, with dark skin, darker hair, and broad smiles. They also talked and talked.
I retreated to the large guest room, the one that Telia and Bardon insisted I must have, and closed the door. The lamp by the double-wide bed was bright enough to read by, and I had some reading to do.
It didn’t take long, and all that I found was what I had remembered, a single paragraph, not even a long one. The key words were simple: “Order cannot be concentrated in and of itself, not even within the staff of order, and no man can truly master the staff of order until he casts it aside.”
Except the words were wrong, somehow. No matter where my staff was, it still gathered order and repulsed chaos. For a long time, I looked through the pages of the book, but nothing else shed light on that paragraph.
After I replaced the black-covered and well-thumbed pages in my pack, I stared into emptiness. The pieces were there- that I knew. How they fit, I didn’t. The white wizard had died when my staff had touched his fingertips, or at least when it had gotten close. The staff had been nearly as close to other sources of chaos without that violent a reaction, and if a simple staff could destroy a chaos-wizard someone would have gone against Antonin long before. Unless there were reasons to maintain chaos… I didn’t like that thought at all.
So I tried to sort out my feelings about Deirdre, Krystal, and Tamra, but the thought of sorting out those three was enough to exhaust me on the spot, and I blew out the lamp and slept, sort of, until the gray of dawn crept through the window.
The next day brought more talking over breakfast. The trip carried us into wilder countryside, with the end of the orchards and fenced fields. The clouds had dissipated, but the chill remained, and we rode in a bright chill toward the unseen Westhorns. By mid-morning, the road straggled through underbrush that had begun to reclaim the less time-trampled edges of the road, and the lands beyond the road that had once been grazing lands were dotted with mature trees and scattered brush, including thickets upon thickets of wild redberries.
A sense of unease lay over the road, growing as we climbed each of the ever-steepening hills.
Yelena’s face grew tighter with each hill, and the bigger horses strained and began to puff. On a particularly high hill-crest where the road was wider, perhaps because the hummock of stones and fallen timbers looming in the brush back from the north side of the road might have been an inn or roadhouse in times past, I motioned for the sub-officer to stop.
For the first time, looking to the west, I could see the white-tipped dark bulk of the Westhorns. Even from where we had halted, still a good thirty kays from the foothills beneath those massive slopes, I could also see that they were indeed impressive, and that at least another day of riding lay before me.
“We’re getting close, I think. I can feel chaos ahead.”
Yelena squinted against the cold bright sunlight. “We’re still quite a ways from the Westhorns.”
“I can make it from here. You’re needed against Gallos.”
Yelena shook her head. “Order-master, what would happen if I had to tell the sub-commander that we left you this far short of the Westhorns?”
I sighed. She was right. “All right. Let’s go. But if there’s too much chaos ahead, I want to be able to send you back.”
“Why?”
“Because I might have trouble protecting you.” I laughed harshly. “I might have trouble protecting myself.”
The chaos I sensed seemed to recede as we rode westward. Either that, or it was stronger and more distant than I had thought.
By nightfall, we still seeme
d scarcely closer to the base of the Westhorns, although we could see some of the nearer peaks, their ice-covered spires glinting rosy in the sunset.
We camped in another long-deserted farm, sheltered by a single standing stone wall. I set wards, but nothing woke me, and the fourth morning of the trip dawned as gray as the morning when we had left Kyphrien.
I wondered how many more had died on the hills of Northern Kyphros while I rode on my fool’s errand toward the Westhorns. Then, again, what else could I do? No warrior, I could but try to bring order where I might.
In a way, that was similar to woodworking, except in craft-ing I built upon the natural order, whereas in order-mastery- I thought-I tried to strengthen natural order to repulse an unnatural disorder.
“Cheese?” I offered some to Weldein, absent-mindedly.
He took it, equally abstracted, as he looked from the hillside, where we had camped not far from a small brook, toward the mountains. Then he looked at the white cheese, as if wondering how he got it.
“Eat it. It’s good cheese. A mill-master gave it to me.”
“Why?” asked Freyda.
“Because I helped his goddaughter.”
“Was she pretty?” Weldein inquired. His tone was polite.
“Very. Unfortunately,” I added.
The two exchanged glances, and, for some reason Weldein blushed.
“She didn’t like you?” That was Yelena.
She did like me.“
“If she was pretty…” Weldein sounded confused.
I really didn’t want to explain, but I sighed and went on. “I found her attractive. She was capable and bright. That just made it worse.”
“So you left her for duty?” Yelena asked. “How noble…”
“No.” My voice was cold, but I couldn’t help it. “I left because I had a job to do, and because I realized there was someone else still in my heart, and because…” I broke off. What I would have said would have sounded unforgivably pompous. So I shut up. It was probably true, but it was arrogant.
This time all three exchanged knowing glances, and things were even worse.
The Magic of Recluce Page 47
