Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (10 page)

   “I don't know,” mused Ayrlyn. “There's more to the order magic of this world. It's not just feeling. There's a system, somewhere.”

   “You're talking like an engineer, not a healer.”

   “Aren't they really the same?”

   Nylan laughed, then began to readjust the shoulder harness that would hold his second blade. With one at his waist and the other in the shoulder harness, he should have access to one weapon in any situation. Even as he hoped he didn't have to find out, he knew he would. Candar was that sort of place.

   After he tightened the harness and checked his ability to draw the blade easily, he looked at Ayrlyn. “Are you ready?”

   Ayrlyn glanced out the open stable door and down the narrow canyon. “I can't believe Istril wouldn't bring Weryl.”

   “I didn't exactly broadcast our departure. Did you?”

   “No . . . but she would have known.”

   Nylan led the mare out into the sun and climbed into the saddle. “Maybe we'll see her on the way out.”

   “Maybe.” Ayrlyn sounded doubtful.

   In the still-cool light of spring, they let the mounts carry them down the road and past the smithy.

   Ydrall and Huldran stood by the door to the structure that Nylan had designed and built-and where he had forged scores of the deadly Westwind blades. At least, he had managed to finish one more nondestructive item-a foot for Daryn, along with all the blades.

   “Take care, engineer . . . healer,” offered the blonde. “You, too,” said Nylan. His voice was thick. As they passed the causeway, a handful of guards in the bean field straightened. One pointed in their direction and waved. Nylan waved back.

   His vision blurred as he looked beyond the indistinct faces, as he saw the cairns in the background, with the dark green stalks that would bear starflowers rising from the rocks.

   When the mare's hoofs struck the stones of the bridge, his eyes went to the tower, but no one stood on the causeway or waved.

   Nor was there any farewell from the watchtower as they crossed the top of the ridge and headed down, down to the road that would take them west.

   As the two rode past the scattered trees on the lower ridge and eased the mare onto the road to the west, the same road used by the Lornians and Gerlich the year before to attack Westwind, Nylan could sense a figure moving through the trees.

   “Someone's coming,” said Ayrlyn.

   Nylan glanced back toward the ridge, though he could not see the tower beyond, and his hand went to the blade at his waist. With both eyes and senses, he tried to track the approaching rider.

   Beside him, Ayrlyn shifted in her saddle. “No chaos there.”

   Istril rode forward, out of the trees, Weryl strapped to her chest. She also wore twin blades. Her free hand patted Weryl on the back.

   “Nylan?” Istril's eyes were red, as if she had been crying, and her voice was hoarse.

   “Istril? I looked for you and Weryl, but Siret said you'd taken Weryl off riding.” Nylan eased the mare to a stop, and Ayrlyn stopped the chestnut. “I didn't mean to go off without saying anything.”

   “I knew.” Istril coughed as she reined up. “Knew you'd have to leave.” She turned to Ayrlyn. “I'm sorry for the trouble and the hurt I caused you, healer. But you'll understand, I hope.”

   “Istril . . .” began Ayrlyn.

   “Hear me out, please, 'fore you say anything.” The silver-haired guard turned to Nylan. “You have to take Weryl, ser. He's your son. He has to go with you. I know he does.”

   Nylan winced. “He's yours, too, Istril, far more than mine.”

   “What kind of life will he have here? He's got your blood. The Marshal'll drive him out before he's even grown. He can live in the lowlands. I can tell that. I can't. It'll be all right for the next one. The Marshal's not the only one who sees the future. I'll call her Shierl. She's a girl, and the Marshal looks fond on girls.”

   “Why?”

   “You saved my life, ser, more than once, and Weryl's all I can give, and you'll raise him right. You do everything right. You will.”

   Beside him Ayrlyn offered the faintest of smiles.

   “Da?” asked Weryl, stretching out his hands.

   Istril fumbled with the straps of the carry-pouch. After a slow and lingering embrace, she slowly eased Weryl away from her and lifted the silver-haired boy toward Nylan.

   Nylan stretched out his own hands, too, even though he knew that the single syllable meant little enough, and that giving him Weryl was the most painful action Istril could ever have taken.

   As the smith struggled to settle Weryl in place in the pack on his own chest, readjusting the sword harness and the blade itself, Istril dismounted and began to unfasten the two bags behind her saddle. Her cheeks were again tear-stained. “One's food-the best I can do; the other's clothes. They're not much.”

   “I'll carry one,” Ayrlyn offered.

   “You'll be good to the engineer... and Weryl.” Istril swallowed and coughed. “. .. hate this . .. hate it... but I'd have nothing . . . without you two.”

   “You would have done fine,” Nylan protested.

   “Without you two, every last one of us'd be dead or slaves or both.” Istril cleared her throat. “This way . .. this way . .. I'll have Shied and a life, and Weryl'll have the best ... he can, too.”

   Nylan didn't know what to say, and he patted his son on the back and looked helplessly at Istril.

   “Won't stand here weeping ... like some fool.” Istril threw herself into the saddle, took a long look at Weryl, then urged her mount into a trot back up the road to the ridge and the tower.

   “Daaaa ...” said Weryl, and Nylan wondered if the sound were as sad as he thought, or if the sadness were his.

   How did he get into such messes? Was it life, fate, or his own inability to see all the patterns? He could see enough to know that Westwind had needed a tower, and all the buildings, and the smithy and the mill, yet-where people were concerned-he felt so blind, so inadequate.

   He glanced at Ayrlyn, sitting stone-faced on the chestnut. “You haven't said much.” The engineer looked at Ayrlyn. “I feel sorry for Istril, and I'm angry at Ryba. It didn't have to happen this way.” The healer took a deep breath. “I need to think about all of this. If it were anyone but Istril. . . anyone-”

   “You'd leave me?”

   “Probably.” Ayrlyn shook her head. “No. I wouldn't, but I'd be angrier, a whole lot angrier. Istril's not the self-pitying, self-sacrificing type. She knows what would happen to Weryl, and it's tearing her apart. And it would only be worse if you rode back to Westwind. So don't even think about it. Istril didn't mean it as a guilt-trip. But I'm angry. In effect, we have a child before we've really had a chance to sort anything out, and I can't really even be angry at you. Except I am. Part of me says that it wasn't your fault, and part of me wants to know why you're so frigging noble that you always end up picking up the pieces.” She flicked the reins. “We'd better get moving. Sitting here on the trail doesn't solve anything.” No ... it didn't. Nylan cleared his throat, patted Weryl on the back, wondered how long before the boy would be hungry, and flicked the mare's reins, beginning a journey whose end he didn't know for reasons he could feel but not articulate, with a son he barely knew in some ways-and they were headed for a land where they were probably hated because he couldn't stay where he had built a safe haven.

   Life was just so fair, so wonderfully equitable. His jaw tightened as he eased the mare after Ayrlyn.

THE BROWN-HAIRED man in the silver robes waited as the officer in the green uniform and white sash advanced into the small receiving hall-a marble-floored room merely large enough for two or three of the Cyadoran steam wagons whose numbers had dwindled from legion to a mere score or so.

   “Majer Piataphi?”

   “Yes, Your Mightiness?”

   “Sit down.”

   The majer glanced at the two padded stools, each armless and backless, that faced the table desk behind which sat Lephi on a high-backed stool. Finally, Piataphi seated himself on the front edge of the left stool.

   Lephi lifted the scroll. “This is the response we received from the Lornian barbarians. Do you know what it says?”

   “No, Sire.” A faint sheen coated Piataphi's forehead.

   “It says nothing-except that we are discourteous. We of the land of Cyador, ancient and mighty, are discourteous. We of Cyador, who brought order out of disorder, cities out of . wild forests, we are discourteous. We who brought metal-working and the first trade ships to cross the oceans, we are discourteous. There is no remembrance of the daughters they enticed away generations ago, nor of the dangers to life our ancestors eliminated, such as the stun lizards that were everywhere.”

   Piataphi waited.

   “That in itself is no matter, Majer. No matter.” Lephi stood and stepped from behind the white-lacquered table desk that dated through at least eight generations of Lords of Cyador. The Emperor walked toward the tinted glass windows, then paused before the oiled wooden frames as his eyes ranged over Cyad, down from the hillside site of the White Palace, toward the harbor, toward the piers that once housed the White Fleet of the ancients, before his grandsire had decided that the barbarians around the Western Ocean had nothing to offer. He smiled faintly as he took in the cranes and the timbers at the shipworks to the west of the white stone piers.

   The white-paved streets glistened, glistened from the hiss of brooms as the sweepers continued their endless work to ensure that the White City remained shimmering white. Those who walked the streets were well clad, clean, and scented with oils and spices, as they should have been.

   Without turning back to face Piataphi, Lephi continued. “You will teach the barbarians the meaning of discourtesy. They have forgotten that all that they possess came from the ancients of Cyador. Since they have no gratitude, we must use fear. They have existed on the sufferance of Cyador, and we will not suffer that misapprehension to continue.”

   “Yes, Sire.” Piataphi remained nearly motionless on the edge of the stool.

   “Would that we had the fire cannons. Or the lances of light, but those will be with us again before long.”

   “We cannot duplicate the fittings yet, Lord. Nor fill the reservoirs.”

   “We cannot duplicate them now,” mused Lephi. “But that is changing. Already, we build a fireship. Then we will recreate the fire cannons. You will not need them now. Cyador is larger, more prosperous than in the time of my grandsire.” He turned back toward Piataphi. “We must have the copper mines of the north; those in Delapra will not last. Take all the even-numbered Mirror Lancers and the Shield Foot-”

   “All, Your Mightiness?”

   “I am not aware of any other challenges to Cyador. Are you?”

   “No, Sire.”

   “I wish the barbarians annihilated-those within fifty kays of the mines. The others you may handle as you see fit. If they will not respect us out of gratitude, they will respect the forces you command.”

   “There are doubtless many more-they breed like lizards, Sire-than in years previous.”

   “You may also take the Shining Foot.”

   “Thank you, Sire.”

   “Begin your preparations tomorrow. You may use half the steamwagons on the North Highway.”

   “As you command, Sire.”

   “As I command ... yes, as I command, Majer. And I command you to leave a swath of destruction around any that oppose the might of Cyador. Or forget what we have bestowed upon them.”

   The majer nodded.

   “You may go.”

   Piataphi stood and stiffened to attention. “All honor to Your Mightiness and to the glory of Cyador.”

   “Go . ..” Lephi gestured, as if to wave away a fly.

   The majer saluted, turned, and marched from the small receiving room.

 
  Lephi's brown eyes went to the ancient painting on the inside wall-the etched-metal depiction of a wheeled steam wagon with a fire cannon turning a section of trees and animals into ashes. Even a giant stun lizard was shown flaring into flame.

   “Cyador will become yet more mighty,” he whispered. “We will have more steamwagons and fire cannon. We will. As I will it to be. As it was in the beginning, and will be evermore.”

THE STREAM GURGLED and splashed, not quite overflowing its banks, if well below the clay track that was something more than a trail and less than a road.

   The gray leaves on the willowlike trees had spread but not turned to the fuller green of summer, and the new leaves were but half-open. A few starflowers bloomed in patches on the far side of the water, nestled in sun-warmed patches of green between the piles of weathered rock that had peeled off the canyon walls over the years. A steel-blue bird chittered from the top of a scrawny pine as the two horses carried their riders downhill and generally westward.

   Nylan patted Weryl gently, trying to encourage the boy to keep sleeping. For whatever reason, carrying his son seemed to make him saddlesore more quickly, yet a year-old child didn't weigh that much. Or was it the weight of two blades- or all of it together? He lifted his weight off the saddle a moment, and his knees protested.

   “Do we have any ideas where we ought to be going- besides west?” Ayrlyn asked.

   “No. I wish I did, but. . .” Nylan turned in the saddle and looked back over his shoulder toward the ice needle that was Freyja-now barely visible above the gray rock walls of the canyon that the road followed, downward and usually westward. He took a deep breath. “In a way, I feel lost. I always let someone else decide. The service needed engineers, and so I became one. Ryba and the marines needed a safe haven, and I built it. Now ...” He shrugged as he looked toward Ayrlyn. “Now, I have to figure out where we're going and what I want from life, and I can't-or I haven't so far.”

   Ayrlyn nodded. “You're getting more honest with yourself, and that's a start.”

   “Great. I now know that everyone else has been determining my destiny. It doesn't make finding it any easier-on me or you.”

   “We share that, Nylan.” She offered a soft smile. “We'll work it out.”

   “Even with Weryl?”

   “In some ways, it's easier. He's so young.”

   The smith moistened his lips, then asked, “How long will it take to get out of the Westhorns? You've traveled these roads more than I have.”

   “Four or five trips don't make me an expert. We didn't exactly have a lot of time to learn about this place, and I was more worried about trading for the things we needed and avoiding the local armsmen.”

   “This isn't the most popular route.” So far as Nylan could tell, the only tracks on the narrow winding road were those of Skiodra's traders, and those had been nearly weathered away. In places, the tracks of deer, and in one section, a bear, were superimposed over the traces of the traders' carts. Clearly, not too many locals traveled the Westhorns-not in spring, anyway.

   “It will get more popular. Ryba has made sure most of the brigands are dead, or they've gone elsewhere.”

   “We hope. I'm not exactly convinced they're all gone.” Nylan glanced ahead, at the narrow valley sloping away, and at the thick green canopy on the left side of the road, probably growing out of marshy ground beside the stream. The greenery was enough to hide anything, including bandits.

   “Ryba will take care of any that are left,” Ayrlyn offered.

   “In the same way she takes care of everything else,” Nylan added sardonically. “With a sharper blade applied more quickly.” He squinted at the road ahead. The mention of brigands bothered him, though he couldn't say why.

   “You're bothered.”

   The engineer nodded.

   “We'll just have to be careful.”

   “I hope that will help.” After a moment, he added, “It would help if Ryba improved some of the stream fords, put in bridges.” Nylan wiped his forehead.

   “Still the engineer, I see.” Ayrlyn laughed. “I probably always will be.” He tried to loosen his jacket all the way, but stopped as Weryl, who had been sleeping, gave a lurch. Ayrlyn still wore her jacket mostly closed. He hoped the lowlands wouldn't be too hot-there was a difference between being able to survive and surviving in something other than total misery.

   “Waaa . . .” Weryl squirmed in the carrypak, and Nylan could sense his son's discomfort-again! The odor confirmed Nylan's senses.

   “We need to stop again,” The smith wanted to laugh at the look on Ayrlyn's face. “You were the one who said he traveled well.”

   “I shouldn't have spoken so soon.” They had to travel almost a kay before they descended enough into the canyon valley and reached a spot where the approach to the stream was both gentle enough and open enough through the tangled willows-with a shelf of coarse sand-for easy access to the water.

   Nylan extracted Weryl from the carrypak again, hanging it over a low willow branch, followed by Weryl's loose trousers. The pants were dry, thank darkness, but the cloth beneath was anything but.

   Nylan took a deep breath and stepped toward the stream.

   At the first touch of the cold water, Weryl began to howl.

   “I'm sorry, little fellow,” Nylan said, “but you don't like being a mess, and I don't like smelling it.”

   The cries were interspersed with sobs, which drifted into sobs alone by the time Nylan had his son back in dry clothes.

   “Can you hold him while I wash out what he was wearing?” Nylan asked Ayrlyn.

   “I would have helped, but you seemed to have everything under control. You will attack changing him like an engineering problem, though.”

   “I suppose so. It is a waste disposal problem.”

   “He's your son, not a waste disposal problem.”

   “He may be my son, but being my son isn't going to make him less smelly or more comfortable.” Nylan handed Weryl to Ayrlyn, who lifted him to her shoulder and patted his back, rocking as she did so.

   Nylan's hands were red from the cold water of the stream by the time he had the cloth squares clean. “I'll have to fasten them over the bags or something so that they'll dry.”

   “He's hungry, I think,” suggested Ayrlyn.

   “We'll try the biscuit things, with water.” After draping the cloth squares over the saddlebags, the engineer opened Weryl's food pack.

   There had been no such things as baby bottles on Westwind, not when all the milk was breast milk, but in the food pack was a crude wooden cup with a carved cover that had a small spout. Nylan had breathed one sigh of relief when he had seen that.

   “Let me sense the water,” Ayrlyn offered. After a moment, she added, “It's safe enough. They don't have river rodents here-not that we've seen. Sometimes, they foul the water.”

   Nylan filled the cup and capped it. He still worried about getting the boy to eat enough of whatever was necessary for a proper dietary balance, but Weryl happily gummed his way through a biscuit and half-sucked, half-drank some of the stream water.

   After that, the engineer eased him into the carrypak again and remounted. “How long before we have to stop again?”

   “We don't have a timetable, you know,” Ayrlyn pointed out.

   “I know. But I feel as though there's something we'll have to do and that time's running out.”

   “You always feel that way.”

   “Maybe.” But Nylan didn't think so. His eyes took a last look at Freyja as the track carried them around a wide curve formed by the stream, and the ice needle vanished behind a wall of gray rock covered with scattered evergreens.