Ordermaster

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  As she spoke, he realized one other thing. He would always be who he was, at heart, and Jeka knew who that man was. The young ladies like Meyena never would know, never would understand. He swallowed once more, before speaking. “I... want you to come to Cantyl. I don’t want to leave you here.”

  “Told you. Can’t come like that. Won’t be a plaything. Rather take my chances here.”

  “I’m not asking you to come as a plaything. I’m asking you to come to see if you like Cantyl well enough to be my consort.”

  For a long moment, there was silence.

  “Don’t need to come to Cantyl for that.”

  Kharl shook his head. “I... we can’t stay here. I’d have to spend every moment worrying about what Osten was trying to do next.”

  Jeka laughed, the melodic laugh that he had heard so seldom and loved so much. “Wasn’t what I was saying. Be your consort anywhere. I don’t need to see Cantyl. Doesn’t matter whether you’ve got more lands or less. Matters that you want me.” Kharl swallowed again, not unhappily. “You mean that?”

  Another warm and rich laugh answered his words. “You saved me. Two, three times. You did everything you could for me. You came back, partly for me, ran to find me when you thought Egen might be after me. You’re handsome. You’re good. Used to watch you, you know? Would have been a cooper’s consort.” There was a pause. “You sure?”

  “Very sure.” Kharl didn’t even hesitate.

  Before he could take another breath, she was beside him, her arms around him.

  For the moment, and those that followed, Kharl did not worry about blindness, or anything else.

  XC

  Kharl, Jeka, Erdyl, and Demyst sat in the library. Jeka perched on a stool beside Kharl’s desk chair. He couldn’t help but keep looking at her. He had persuaded her to have some new outfits made-still trousers and shirts. She wore dark green trousers and a matching shirt, with a lighter green leather vest, not quite so shapeless as those she had worn before, but not form-clinging either. She also still bore the pair of belt knives, not to mention the hidden blade.

  “... someone had to have been waiting at the rendering yard, Sharlak said,” Demyst finished.

  “One of Egen’s people.” Kharl shook his head. With everything that had happened, it had taken days before he’d been able to send someone out to check on Werwal-and as in the case of Warrl, even if he’d sent someone the next day, it would have been too late. He’d warned Werwal’s consort, but he should have waited and taken Werwal straight to the residence. Another case where he hadn’t quite finished the task at hand, and another one of those who had supported him had died.

  “You can’t do everything, ser,” offered Erdyl.

  Somehow, those words didn’t reassure Kharl very much.

  “You two going to have an official ceremony?” asked Demyst quickly.

  “As soon as we get to Valmurl,” Kharl said.

  “Consorted now,” replied Jeka. “He never breaks his word.” She looked sideways at Kharl with a grin.

  “That shouldn’t be that long, then. When will the Seastag be ready to leave?” asked Erdyl, shifting his weight in the chair to avoid banging the edge of the side table with his injured arm, still in a sling.

  Kharl had tried to use order to speed the healing. He’d definitely kept any wound chaos from forming, and probably his efforts would result in Erdyl’s earlier recovery, but it was clear that he was no healer.

  “She just ported two glasses or so ago,” said Kharl. “Why do you think we’re leaving? Why are you in such a hurry?”

  “I’m not so sure I did very well, ser.” Erdyl glanced down at his injured arm.

  “I wouldn’t be in that much of a hurry.” Kharl smiled.

  So did Jeka, from beside him, knowing what was coming.

  “We aren’t going back to Austra, ser?” Erdyl’s face fell. “I saw you and Jeka packing.”

  “Oh, we are.” Kharl drew out the words. “You aren’t.”

  “Ser? What did I do wrong?”

  “Nothing.” The mage grinned at the younger man. “That’s why you’re staying. Lord West-the new Lord West-has requested that I return to Austra. I insisted that Lord Ghrant needed to keep someone here, at least an assistant envoy. You get to be that assistant envoy. Either Lord Ghrant confirms you as envoy or he doesn’t, but either way, it’s a better position, and you’ll get to be in charge here-at least as much as Undercaptain Demyst and Khelaya let you.”

  “I worry about Lord West,” Erdyl said.

  “Don’t worry too much,” Kharl said. “He knows that, if anything happens to you, I’ll be back. He’d much rather have you as an envoy.”

  “Me ... I don’t know ...”

  “You will do much better with the functions, and being polite. You understand that. Every time I had to meet with them, I spent glasses learning just a handful of the proper phrases,” Kharl pointed out. “When will you leave?”

  “Tonight. There’s not that much cargo to onload, and Furwyl really just returned this way to check on us before heading back to Valmurl. Lord Hagen had ordered him to.”

  “Thoughtful of him,” said Demyst dryly.

  “He does worry. Occasionally.” Kharl turned back to Erdyl. “Besides, you can send a letter to your sire. You can sign and seal it as the envoy in charge in Brysta.” Erdyl laughed. “You think-“

  “Lord Ghrant can’t send another envoy for a season. Besides, he can trust you, and there aren’t many that he can. You can write well and report on what Osten does. That’s what envoys are supposed to do.” Kharl stood. “We need to get ready. I’ll tell you what I think that you might not know while we do ...”

  It took Kharl less time than he’d thought to do both, perhaps because he didn’t know as much as he’d thought, and because Erdyl had been more observant than Kharl had realized, and because Jeka had little to pack.

  The sun was low in the west, almost ready to set, when Kharl watched the last bag being loaded into the baggage cart, along with the first bolts of fabric from Gharan. The others would have to be shipped on one of Hagen’s ships when Gharan finished them. Demyst had the two mounts saddled and ready.

  Jeka stood beside the carriage. She looked at Kharl. “Still think you’ve done enough.”

  “No. This is ... I have to do it.”

  “You think that it’ll work? That he’ll be there?”

  Kharl shrugged. “I don’t know. Not for sure. He was there earlier today, and Sestalt’s people say that he didn’t ride out. I have to try. I can’t leave this job unfinished.”

  “Don’t let anyone get close enough to hurt you.” Jeka’s green eyes flashed as she looked up at him. “Rather be with you.”

  “I have to do this alone.” He opened the carriage door for her, then stood aside as Alynar stepped into the carriage. Sharlak sat beside Mantar. “Straight to the Seastag.”

  “Yes, ser.” Mantar smiled, then gave the reins the slightest flick.

  As the carriage headed down the drive, followed by the cart, Kharl turned and looked at the envoy’s residence. With all that had happened, it was hard to believe that he’d been back in Brysta less than a season. Less than a season, but as the druids had predicted, a necessary season.

  He walked to the gelding, took the reins from Demyst, and mounted. Neither man spoke until they were well away from the residence.

  “You’re all right with staying?” Kharl asked the undercaptain.

  “Yes, ser. Erdyl, he’ll need me.” Demyst smiled. “Done the hard work, and I’d like to enjoy what comes next. Besides, I sort of fancy Enelya.”

  Kharl hadn’t even noticed that, but that wasn’t something he would have noticed. “She seems a good sort.”

  “Not like your lady, ser, but good. None like yours.”

  Kharl laughed softly. He’d never met anyone like Jeka, not even close.

  As they turned their mounts uphill, shadow fell across the hillside.

  “You sure this is necessary,
ser?” asked Demyst.

  “Not for me. For Brysta.”

  “Doesn’t deserve it. Deserve what they put up with.”

  “If I don’t, they won’t know anything better, and they’ll come to put up with worse. Then we’ll have to,” Kharl countered.

  “That’s one way of looking at it, ser.”

  It was the only way Kharl could look at it. The Lord’s Road was almost deserted at twilight, and no one even seemed to look at the two riders as they passed the entrance to the Hamorian residence-the gates locked and the guards absent. How long before Whetorak or another envoy returned? Kharl shook his head sadly. Hamor wouldn’t change. He didn’t see it happening in his lifetime, maybe not ever.

  Kharl turned at the next side road, the one that turned east and bordered the lower gardens of the Quadrancy Keep. After about fifty cubits, he reined up under an ancient oak, one that shielded him from direct view from the southeast tower, and dismounted.

  “I’ll be hereabouts somewhere, ser,” said Demyst.

  “I’d guess it won’t be much longer than a glass,” Kharl said.

  “Be careful.”

  Kharl nodded. He intended to be most careful. He waited for a brief time until Demyst was another fifty cubits farther east, then turned to the tree.

  While the oak had been trimmed and pruned to eliminate any lower branches, Kharl visualized a set of steps made of hardened air, then created the stairs as a form of air shield. He released the air shield as soon as he was in the branches of the oak.

  He climbed up several more branches until he was above the wall. Then, creating a sight shield, he eased himself down onto one of the stone merlons and slipped down onto the guardway.

  Walking swiftly but carefully, he followed the guardway back west, then northward toward the main section of the keep. Kharl had to step into embrasures twice as guards passed, but his sight shield was enough, and none even paused.

  From what he had discovered earlier in the eightday, Osten had taken apartments on the third level while the Lord’s quarters were being repaired and rebuilt, and his study was directly above where the battlement ran beneath and adjoined the west wall. There was a balcony outside the study.

  Kharl stopped a good ten cubits short of the balcony. He let his order-perceptions reach upward. As he had anticipated, Osten was in his study alone, as he usually was in the glass before the evening meal. Because it was still summer, the door to the balcony was also open, providing air to the study.

  Kharl smiled, briefly. For most, a six-cubit sheer wall would have been a problem. Kharl created another set of steps out of hardened air and made his way up to the balcony. Holding the sight shield, Kharl made his way unseen up his invisible steps. He was sweating profusely by the time he stepped over the parapet and released the steps of hardened air.

  Still, he was inside Osten’s defenses. While there were guards throughout the keep, the closest pair was stationed outside the door to the bedchamber, beyond the study. Kharl eased through the open balcony door.

  Osten sat at a table desk, a large ledger before him, his back to Kharl.

  Kharl stepped slowly to the door between the empty bedchamber and the study. Once there, he quietly closed the door, which had been only slightly ajar, and slid the lock plate closed. Osten did not look up or turn his head.

  Kharl hardened the very air around Osten, leaving only space for his nostrils and ears, before stepping forward and releasing the sight shield so that Osten could see him.

  “Osten, Lord West,” he said quietly. “I don’t think you believed me when I said that I could always get to you.”

  Osten tried to struggle, but could move not a muscle.

  “This is to show you that I can. If I ever hear of cruelty or unfairness- the way your brother and father acted-I will return, and you will no longer be Lord West. You will no longer be anything.”

  Osten’s breath rasped in and out of his nostrils.

  “If you ever try to send assassins after me, or after whoever is envoy for Austra, the same thing will happen. It is very simple. All you have to do is your best to be a fair and just ruler. You do that, and you have nothing to worry about.” Kharl laughed softly. “You didn’t see me coming, and you didn’t hear me, and all your walls and guards meant nothing.” Kharl took the pen from the stand and dipped it in the inkwell, then wrote across the open page of the ledger: “Be fair. Be just, and fear nothing.”

  He set the pen back in the stand, then looked at the red-faced Osten. He smiled and said, “Good night, Lord West.”

  After stepping back, Kharl raised the sight shield around himself. Then he walked to the balcony. He took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then recreated the air-steps, releasing them as soon as his boots touched stone once more. Not until he was on guardway below and halfway to the garden oak did he release Osten’s bonds.

  This time, short of the oak, he used the stairway of hardened air to the ground beside the lower garden wall.

  Behind him, he heard no alarms, no outcries, and he sensed no guards moving. Was that because Osten had decided against telling anyone what had happened? Because it showed he was vulnerable? Kharl didn’t know, and didn’t much care, so long as he reached the Seastag safely.

  He did not see Demyst immediately and began to walk eastward. He’d been walking almost a quarter of a glass before he sensed the undercaptain and the two mounts. Releasing the the sight shield, he stepped out from behind one of the hedges.

  “I’m back,” he said quietly.

  “Getting worried, ser.”

  “So was I.” Kharl grinned, then mounted, and wiped his forehead.

  They rode quickly downhill through the darkness toward the waiting Seastag-and to Jeka.

  Epilogue

  There won’t be any great mages in the future,” Kharl said, standing on the front porch and looking out at the small harbor of Cantyl-his harbor, or his and Jeka’s. “I had trouble stopping rifle bullets when a whole company was firing. Before long, they’ll start building bigger cannon with soft iron shells, maybe even black iron shells. Then they’ll build something bigger, because the next Emperor of Hamor, or the one after that, or the one after that, can’t stand the thought that someone stopped Hamor from grabbing another land.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jeka said, squeezing his hand. “Always someone making trouble. You fixed things now. When the time comes, folks then, they’ll have to fix things for themselves.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You’ve done enough. ‘Sides no one’s going to bother Lord Ghrant so long as you’re his mage. Folks are stupid, but not many stupid enough to get you after them.”

  “I didn’t really create all that chaos,” Kharl pointed out. “The chaos-wizards did.”

  Jeka laughed, the musical laugh that he loved so much. “Who knows that, except you and me?”

  Kharl squeezed her hand back and looked at the smooth silver of the harbor water, calm in the late fall evening.