“I want the best one.”
Rissa sighed and lifted both hands into the air.
I waited.
“She has her shop on the south side of Kyphrien, below the river bluff, and the back wall is part of the old city wall that was destroyed by Fenardre the Great ages and ages ago…”
The directions weren’t that bad, and I went back to the shop, where Wegel was working on carving the too-ornate top for a breadboard. I could tell that if I weren’t careful, he’d do more carving than anything. Then, he had talent there. I tried not to sigh.
Instead, I looked around. “Wegel, when you take a break, the floor needs to be swept. The stalls need mucking, and the lamps need refilling.” I fumbled in my purse and handed him two silvers. “We need hay. Rissa will tell you who is likely to have some, and once you unload it, make sure you replace the stuff in the stables.”
My apprentice looked up with that dumb, desperate, obedient look that they all have when confronted with the unpleasant. He didn’t groan, though. “Y-y-yes,‘s-ser.”
“I’m going to make arrangements for the brass hinges for Preltar’s chest. I hope it doesn’t take too long, but I want all that done before you do any more carving.”
“Y-y-yes, ser.”
I almost whistled as I saddled Gairloch, until I bent too energetically in reaching for the saddle and my assorted bruises and burns reminded me that I still wasn’t totally healed from my last encounter with chaos.
As a matter of habit, I did stick the staff in the lanceholder before leading Gairloch out into the yard.
Rissa came out of the kitchen. “Leastwise, you’re taking your staff. Southside is filled with ruffians and thieves. You use Borlo, and you don’t worry about taking your life in your hands…”
“I’ll be fine, Rissa.”
“And you were fine taking on all the wizards, and you were fine even in your own bed…”
Clearly, what I said wouldn’t matter. So I smiled and climbed into the saddle.
“Just be ready to use that staff, now.”
“I will.” I tried not to sigh.
Gairloch almost pranced along the road to Kyphrien, and I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t ridden him more recently. Poor pony-he either got ridden practically to death or not at all.
I hadn’t been in the old southern section of Kyphrien, where the streets were almost narrow enough for me to reach out and touch walls with each arm.
Twice I had to ask for directions of a sort, because all the streets wound in and back on each other, but I finally got it sorted out, and my nose got accustomed to the sourness and the accumulated odors that hung in the older quarter. Fenardre the Great might have done everyone a favor if he’d been more energetic in removing buildings and walls all those years ago.
An outsized copper kettle over a heavy iron-banded door was the only indication of Merrin’s location or occupation. The building was a narrow two-storied brick dwelling with a cracked tile roof and a single wide window on the second level-at least in front.
After tying Gairloch to the iron ring on the stone post by the single stone slab that was the front stoop, my staff in hand, I rapped on the door, hard.
“Coming! Coming!”
The door came ajar, and I could see the glint of the blade and the dark iron chain even before I saw the short gray thatch of hair or the high-cheeked and slightly wrinkled face. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lerris. I’m a crafter, and Liessa had suggested you might do the kind of brasswork I need. You are Merrin?” I asked as an afterthought.
“I’m Merrin.” Her eyes scanned me, and she muttered something about a staff and pony. Then the chain snicked, and the door opened. “Come on in.”
Inside the stone floor was clean, and a desk or worktable stood on a braided rug. The building was deeper than I had realized, and I could see a hearth and something that looked like a stove, not to mention some crucibles, hammers, small anvils, and other tools whose function I could guess at.
High side windows provided more light than the single front window. A brass or copper lamp sat next to a sconce of some sort. Neither was swirled or ornate, yet there was something distinctive about each, something I couldn’t pin down. The smell of hot metal, and an incense, just tickled at my nose.
“Sit down.”
I leaned the staff against the wall and sat.
“I’d offer you tea, but I haven’t made any.” She laid the blade aside. “So…you’re the famous Lerris? The wizard who loves wood.”
“Not famous.” I shrugged. “I came because I need some heavy decorative brass hinges for a dowry chest.”
“Why didn’t you try Borlo?”
“Because”-and I tried to capture Rissa’s tone-“his father, he made wonderful kettles…”
Merrin laughed, and her wrinkled face crinkled a shade more.
I extended a sheet of paper. “This is a rough drawing of the sort of hinges I need.”
She took the paper and frowned. “Are these real hinges, or are you going to put iron inside the chest?”
“I don’t like false work. If you think I have to, I will, but I’d prefer that your hinges do the work. If I can afford them.”
“Afford me?” She laughed again, then looked at my sketch. “I won’t do these. You let me design my own, and you can have them for five silvers. That includes the matching screws, and those are a pain.”
“All right, but I think the hinges will need to be that large. It’s a heavy chest.”
“You did these the size you wanted?”
“They could be larger here”-I pointed-“but that’s the thickness of the chest top.”
“I’d make them larger.” She nodded. “You willing to trust me? Sight unseen?”
I was, though I couldn’t say why, perhaps because of the lamp and sconce. Or because Liessa did. I nodded.
WHHEEEE… EEEEE…
I grabbed my staff and ran for the door. Merrin snatched a blade from somewhere and followed.
A young fellow in not much more than gray rags lay against the far wall, and another in a ripped and stained shirt had lifted a length of wood-a rough staff. He’d hit Gairloch once.
“… demon beast…”
His eyes flicked up, and I was almost on top of him. With a clumsy swing, he tried to slam my midsection, but my staff was quicker and heavier, and his frail weapon went sailing. Then I thrust and twisted, and he went down like a sack of spilled flour next to the other man. Both groaned.
“Yense! I warned you.” Merrin stepped forward with the unsheathed blade toward the one Gairloch had knocked into the wall.
I glanced up the narrow street. A white-haired woman peered out from a half-open door, and a small boy, dressed in trousers and a rough tunic shaped from some sort of sacking, watched from a step across the narrow lane, his eyes darting to the partly open door behind him.
“Wasn’t meaning trouble for you, Merrin…”
“You’re an idiot. You’re almost a dead idiot, too.” The blade flicked, and a line of red marked Yense’s cheek. “That’s my promise. The next time, you’ll be dead. Get up, both of you!”
Both Yense and the man I had knocked down struggled to their feet. Something felt wrong, and my staff flicked almost without my direction.
Clung! Clank!
The unnamed man held his broken wrist and the long knife he had drawn from his ragged shirt lay on the uneven street stones.
“Don’t you two ever learn?” snapped Merrin. “This man is named Lerris. Does the name have any meaning? No, of course not. There’s one wizard of that name in the city. He’s killed a few dozen troops and several wizards with that staff. He’s the only one in the whole city who rides a mountain pony, and you two are dumb enough to try to steal it. Neither of you is worth trying to save. Get out of here!”
The hatred in both sets of eyes seemed overlaid with fear, and then they stumbled down the lane, one blotting his cheek, the other holding a broken wrist.
; Merrin reached down and scooped up the knife. “Not bad work. Stolen, of course.” She looked at me.“Shall we finish?”
I patted Gairloch, and offered a touch of order-healing to the welt on his flank. “All right, fellow…”
Whufffff…
“If we leave the door open,” I said.
“Fine.” She shrugged. “But no one around here will mess with you now. That’s one reason why I put on the show. It works better than killing them, most times anyway.”
As I shook my head, I got the definite feeling that there had been a few dead bodies at her door.
“For a man who’s certainly a warrior, you don’t seem that pleased.” She stepped back into the shop.
I glanced back at Gairloch and moved the chair so I could see him through the open door. “I’m not.”
“Neither am I, but some people only respect force. Like that idiot in Certis. Or Hamor. Or poor dumb Yense.” She set the blade down. “Now… how thick do you want these hinges?”
As we talked, and negotiated, I kept looking out at Gairloch, but no one came anywhere close.
I left three silvers for a deposit.
“You’ll like them. I promise.” She watched from the door until I was riding Gairloch uphill and away from the south bluff section. Behind me, the heavy door shut with a dull clunk.
Force-why did some people only respect force? I shook my head and kept my hand on the staff as I rode slowly back through Kyphrien.
LXIV
DAYALA-SILVER-HAIRED and her age distinguishable from that of a young girl only by the darkness behind her pupils and the barely visible fine lines radiating from the corners of those too-wise eyes-stood before the sand table of the Great Forest of Naclos.
“What will be, will be, but let me see the course of the Balance and the vision of the sands.” She bowed, then straightened.
She stopped speaking and concentrated on the sands. In time, a map of eastern Candar began to appear. Piercing green eyes fixed on the sands, and sweat beaded on her forehead, though her hands remained by her side, seemingly relaxed.
In time a small spike of sand appeared on the thin line of darker sand that represented the road from Weevett through Certis to Jellico. She nodded. Patches of ugly reddish sand continued to chum up around the Great North Bay and at a point in Sligo that bordered Freetown.
For several long moments, she studied the map before taking another deep breath and concentrating once more. A wave of darkness spread from the southeast and began to creep toward the chaos. Another appeared at the edge of the Great North Bay and began to creep westward.
Then, the sand sprayed into the air in a column, with the force of a contained explosion.
Dayala stepped back, then turned away, and rivulets of tears streamed down her cheeks as she walked out into the ordered darkness of the grove beyond.
LXV
I HAD SKETCHED out the plans for Wegel’s room, and gone over them with him before I went back to work on Antona’s desk. “I’ll help when you need it, but it’s basically your job.”
Wegel had just nodded.
“ You’re going to do most of the work.”
“F-f-fine.”
“Now… let’s get on with this. While I’m setting up, you can bring the fire up and sweep out the sawdust and small scraps.”
He looked at the floor and then at me.
“I know. It’s cleaner than most places, but I like it cleaner than that. It also means that we don’t get sawdust in the glue and that we’re not sneezing nearly as much. Besides, I get upset when things aren’t neat.”
Wegel shrugged and limped over to the corner alcove where the broom was racked on pegs.
I checked the plans again, and then began planing and smoothing the next set of drawer guides for the left pedestal. I kept glancing at Wegel, but he seemed to work with a will. An apprentice? It was hard to believe.
Wegel had just finished with the hearth and the sweeping when the enclosed gray carriage with the matched chestnuts rolled across the drying mud of the yard and stopped outside the walk to the shop. No insignia marked the glassed door, but I knew who the occupant had to be.
The driver and the guard wore heavy quilted jackets. The guard still carried the crossbow, but also a blade and a heavy pistol. A long spear was set in a holder behind his shoulder. I’d seen more pistols in the last eight-days than I had in years, and I didn’t like what that foreshadowed. If people were using more pistols, it meant that firearms were working better, and that meant more order in the world. Somehow, I felt that had something to do with the groaning chaos beneath Candar, but how had I really had enough time to figure it out?
Antona stepped out, not wearing the fur coat I had half expected, but a long green quilted coat.
“Lady Antona…” I bowed. After all, she had commissioned a fifty-gold desk set.
“Master Lerris?” She laughed. “Must you persist in according me undeserved honors?”
“Any customer is due honors.”
“Especially when one has not delivered?” she asked mildly, the stone-gray eyes raking over me.
“Especially.”
She walked toward the shop, and I walked beside her, not really having any choice. I could have trailed her, but that didn’t appeal to me.
“You’re no longer limping.”
“Not until I get tired.” I opened the door for her.
She looked around the shop, and then at Wegel, who was refilling the moisture pot.
“That Faslik’s boy?”
“Yes. That’s Wegel. I’ve been looking for an apprentice for awhile.”
“Good help is hard to find… even in my enterprises. Or perhaps I should say, especially in my enterprises.” The coat fell partly open in the warmth of the shop, and I caught a glimpse of the same green silk shirt, or another like it, the brushed gray leather trousers and vest.
“Since I am not familiar with your enterprises…” I inclined my head without finishing the sentence.
“Every business takes help and talent.” Her eyes took in Wegel. “You choose carefully, don’t you?”
An odd comment, since she clearly knew of Wegel, and his misshapen foot and limp were obvious as he carried the bucket back to the shelf in the corner and racked it.
“I try, Lady.”
“What do you have to show me?”
“Not so much as I would like, as I suspect you know.” I led her toward the flat board at the end of the bench that served for my plans and rough drafting. It took a moment, but I lifted out the plans and the sketches.
“You have only sketches?” Again, her voice was mild.
“No.” I laughed. “But I want to show you how it is being put together, and the sketches help.”
I smoothed the papers on the flat wood.“Cherry is not quite so heavy as oak or lorken, but it is not a light wood, either, and the proper internal structure and braces are important. Here are the four main internal beams for the pedestal-it’s the same on each side. Each has to be notched just so, and-”
“I think I can see that.”
“Fine.” I walked to the corner where her piece was taking shape, more slowly than I would have liked. “Here are the pedestals…”
“They look like the drawing.”
I certainly hoped so.
“What will you do next?”
“The drawers.”
“Why don’t you do the top part first?”
“That comes next. In a way, I have to do the fronts of the drawers and the top together. That’s so all the grains match.” I nodded toward the wood racks. “There is the wood…”
“That looks like more than you’ll need.”
“It is, and it isn’t. You’re paying for a perfect piece, or as perfect as I can make it.” When she offered a faint smile at the term “perfect piece,” I tried not to hesitate. “That takes more wood, because I want to keep the grain widths the same on all the exposed surfaces. It sometimes takes a while to select the wood. Good craf
ting starts with good wood.”
Behind Antona, Wegel nodded.
“Everything starts with good material.” Antona smiled. “I learned that early enough.”
Not knowing what to say, exactly, I just nodded.
“You have managed better than I would have expected, given the reports of your exploits, Master Lerris. Have you other exploits planned?” Her eyebrows lifted.
“I have no others planned, but I didn’t have the last set planned, either. I must bow to the needs of the autarch.”
“And her commander, no doubt.” She smiled. “Wise man.”
How wise I really might be was another question, but I nodded and followed her back out to the coach and waited until it was out of sight and headed back to Kyphrien.
After that, I went back to drawer guides, and explaining what I was doing to Wegel. Then I let him work on possible ideas for carving the A for a while before we took a break for a midday meal, which we shared with Kilbon, who had stopped by to deliver some potatoes, except we all knew he’d come for more than potatoes. Wegel and I left Rissa and Kilbon in the kitchen.
By mid-afternoon, I finished the last of the drawer guides on the left side. Since I was getting bored-I still did sometimes-I decided to take on Durrik’s chest for a change.
“Wegel. I’m going to work on these.” I pointed to the blanks that would become drawer fronts for Durrik’s chest. “There’s not much for you to do. So you can start on the framing for your room. You’ll have to lay the sills…”
He looked blank, and I tried not to sigh, instead adding, “Let’s go out to the stable building.”
After I showed him what he needed to do, he smiled. I knew I’d have to check up, but he might as well have something he was responsible for from the beginning.
I could hear the noises of the saw and of the hammer as I continued with the drawer fronts.
Every so often, I trudged across the yard, which was finally drying out in the warming winds that preceded spring, to check on Wegel. I made him reset one sill, because it was clear he hadn’t really used the level-probably because he needed to chop through a ridge of clay and lay another line of stones-but he got the idea, and only looked somewhat sheepish.
The Death of Chaos Page 36
