Recluce 07 - Chaos Balance (13 page)

   “You throw them, too?”

 
 “Yes.”

   “Killed anyone?”

   Nylan winced, then nodded.

   “Lots?” pursued the girl.

   “Too many,” Nylan said.

   Another gust of wind brought more rain, and Nylan scooped up Weryl. “Time to go inside, Weryl.”

   In the common room, Ayrlyn was breaking off a number of chunks of dried meat and easing them into the iron kettle that hung over the hearth. “They should cook for a time longer.”

   “Be a while 'fore Jirt gets back anyhow.” Hisek looked at Kisen. “You make some biscuits, Kisen?”

   “Can try, anyhow.” Kisen headed toward the table in the corner.

   Nylan sat on a three-legged stool by their gear and set Weryl on the floor-rough planks laid edge to edge and smoothed by feet and boots. Weryl grasped Nylan's trousers and pulled himself up, tottering on short legs for a moment before plopping down in a heap. After a moment, his fingers grasped the leather trousers again.

   “He'll be walking sooner than you think,” said Ayrlyn, taking the other stool and setting it beside Nylan.

   “Looks that way.”

   After another attempt, and another, Weryl gurgled and smiled.

   Nylan sniffed and reached for the boy. “Is there a well or stream?” he asked more loudly.

   “Use the well by the shed. Bucket's there,” said Hisek.

   Nylan grabbed a clean cloth undersquare from Weryl's pack and carted the boy out through the light rain to the well. While the well water was warmer than the icy stream water of the Westhorns, his hands were still red and raw by the time Weryl and the soiled undersquare were clean and they were back at the house.

   Another figure stood inside the door, and Nylan had to stop suddenly to avoid running into the shorter man.

   “This be my son, Jirt,” offered Hisek. “These are angel folk, travelers, 'cepting that the flame-hair's also a trader at times. Silver-hair's a smith.”

   “My sire's guests are welcome.” Jirt frowned as he looked at Nylan, obviously confused at the lack of whiskers until he saw the stubble.

   “The flock?” asked Hisek.

   “They're in the corral. No cats-so the lambs are all there. Cats be out later.” Jirt was square like his sire, but brown-haired and brown-bearded.

   “Good! We can eat now. You brought the meat, trader lady. You serve,” said Hisek. “Sit.” Hisek indicated that Ayrlyn and Nylan should take the end places on the benches.

   As the others sat at the trestle table, Ayrlyn ladled out the stew. Another crash of thunder seemed to rock the house just as Ayrlyn served herself, and the rain splashed down in sheets.

   “We're very thankful to be here,” she told Hisek.

   The stew wasn't bad, neither as awful as the messes that Kadran had made in learning to cook nor as good as Blynnal's cooking. It was plain and filling, and the dried venison helped a lot. Kisen's biscuits were heavy, but the one that Nylan offered Weryl seemed to keep the boy busy, half as food and half as a teething ring of sorts. At least, Nylan managed to eat a good dozen mouthfuls before he went back to alternating spoonfuls between Weryl and himself.

   “You have a lot of trouble with the cats?” Nylan asked Jirt.

   “Depends. Last year was bad. Lost half the lambs,” answered the herder, his mouth full. “This year . . . not so bad. Yet. Cold winters make easier springs.”

   “Why is that?” asked Ayrlyn.

   “The deer. .Cold winter, the deer have it hard. They get weaker, and that makes it easier for the cats. Cats are smart. Rather go after a deer than a sheep and a herder that could kill 'em.” Jirt reached for another heavy biscuit. “Solid biscuits, sweet. Like 'em that way.”

   Kisen smiled.

   “True what they say about the angels,” ventured Hisek, “that they-you folk-destroyed all Lord Sillek's armsmen and some eighty score of Lord Karthanos's folk?”

   “That's about right. We didn't want to, but when you have two thousand armed men trying to kill you-” Ayrlyn shrugged.

   “Idiots .. .” mumbled Hisek through his food. “Can't live there. Can't even pasture up there 'less you're a rich lord. All it's good for is bandits, and been a lot less of them since the angels showed. Got more from you, trader, than from the folk out of Lornth.”

   “Peace, now,” said Nylan. “Both Karthanos and the regents of Lornth agreed to let Westwind be if Westwind keeps the roads safe of brigands.”

   “Some sense after all,” noted Jirt.

   “Only one who gets killed is the common man,” said Hisek. “Golar was a levy. Lucky to come back alive. Brother didn't. That grassland lord of Jerans killed him. Him and his bitch consort.”

   After more small talk and after all the biscuits were gone, and after Nylan changed Weryl again-thankfully he was only wet-the three men dragged the table to one side of the room.

   “There's the best we can do,” offered Hisek.

   “That's fine,” said Ayrlyn.

   “Much better than outside in this weather,” Nylan agreed.

 
  Jirt and Kisen retreated through the mishung door to the small bedroom, and Nylan rolled out his bedroll in the corner away from the fire, letting Ayrlyn have the closer space. After easing Weryl onto the side closest the fire, he stretched out, glad to get the weight off his feet and buttocks. For a time, he felt better. Then he began to notice that the plank floor was hard, as hard as if it were made of the rock that comprised the walls.

   Plick! A raindrop splatted on the floor behind his head.

   The engineer turned his head toward Ayrlyn. Her eyes met his, and she gave a half-shrug with the shoulder she wasn't lying on.

   “Better than being outside,” she said.

   Plick! Plick! As if to emphasize her statement, the hissing of the rain became a heavier splashing, and another set of thunder rolls echoed outside.

   Nylan turned slightly, careful not to roll onto or into Weryl, or to put his weight on the healing shoulder.

   Plick!

   Across the room, the older man began to snore, like a crosscut saw that rasped across Nylan's nerves.

   Plick! Plick!

   He closed his eyes again.

   Plick!

   The engineer opened them and turned, whispering to Ayrlyn, 'Tell me how it's better than being outside again."

   In the darkness she smiled, and her hand reached out and squeezed his. “It is. You're dry.”

   He was dry. He was also tired, and his wounds and muscles ached.

   Plick!

   He took a deep breath, trying to relax.

   Beside him, Weryl turned, but Ayrlyn squeezed his hand again.

NYLAN GLANCED ALONG the road, a road that now bore a few more cart tracks and hoofprints, then overhead at a patchwork of green-blue sky and white and gray clouds that moved rapidly westward.

   In the fields to the left of the road stood a small hut, surrounded by gardens, where a woman in tattered trousers and a frayed gray shirt mechanically scraped away weeds with a warren. She did not even look toward the road.

   “You still think we should go to Lornth? Why?” asked Nylan, shrugging his shoulders and enjoying the freedom of not carrying Weryl.

   “Call it a feeling ...” This morning, she wore the carrypak that held Weryl, and the silver-haired boy was awake and quiet-watching the long-horned cattle behind the split-rail fence on the south side of the road.

   In turn, Nylan had the rope that led back to the gray. He glanced over his shoulder, but the gelding followed quietly. The ironwoods again flanked the north side of the road, and Nylan wondered how many kays they stretched. There were none on the south side. Because the peasants got rid of them immediately? Nylan would have. They couldn't remove those on the north side because the lands belonged to the lord of Lornth, at least from what Nylan had figured out.

   “You have any thoughts on why you feel Lornth is where we should go?” he pursued.

   “Not really. Something tells me-it could be because one of the regents is a woman-that Lornth would be better.”

   “That's like saying Ryba would be more merciful.” Nylan laughed harshly. “Women aren't necessarily more charitable because they're women. You're more charitable because you're you.”

   “That may be.” Ayrlyn shrugged. “It doesn't change the way I feel about it.”

   “I hope you're right.” Nylan grinned at Weryl. The boy waved both arms, jabbing one back into Ayrlyn's ribs.

   “Ooohhh .. . you've got sharp elbows, Weryl.” The healer rubbed her ribs. “We need to think about designing some sort of seat, behind the saddle, perhaps.”

   “Behind?”

   “It's safer, and it would leave your arms free for a blade or a bow if we ran into brigands. Or have you forgotten how you got all chopped up.”

   “No. You're right. I'll think about it... when we get someplace where I could make it.” Ahead, around the gentle curve in the road that arced to the right, Nylan could see another hut, similar to the last, except that no one tended the garden.

   “You said you had a dream? What sort of dream?” Ayrlyn asked, easing the chestnut closer to Nylan.

   “Trees-old trees, and they were struggling against something. Order and chaos were twisted together. But what was funny was that it made sense, and I don't see how twisting order and chaos together could make any sense at all.”

   “Daaa!” called Weryl, thrusting a chubby fist into the moist air.

   “Daaa to you, too,” answered Nylan.

   “Waaa-daaaa . . .”

   “All right, all right,” said Ayrlyn as she reached for the water bottle. “Try not to drool all over me.”

   “Good luck.” Nylan laughed.

   “I'm doing this because of my great good will. . . and because I love you, you hardheaded smith, but don't push it. That shoulder is getting well enough.”

   “Thanks to you.”

   “The order-healing helps, especially against infection, but we really need antiseptics.”

   “We could distill alcohol out of wine.”

   “How? Isn't tubing and that sort of thing hard to forge?” She eased the bottle to the boy's lips. Surprisingly, little spilled.

   “You're good at that.”

   “Of course.” Ayrlyn grinned as she slipped the cork back in the bottle and stowed it in the holder.

   “Hmmm ... tubing would be hard, but maybe only a little has to be metal. Fire and glaze the rest. Also, we could increase the alcohol content by freezing the wine or whatever, and removing the ice. They used to make winter-wine that way.”

   “I thought you'd think up a way.” Ayrlyn disengaged Weryl's hand from the hilt of her blade. “Was there anything else about your dream?”

   “There must have been. It seemed to last a long time, but the order and the chaos and the trees were all mixed together.”

   “It means something,” mused Ayrlyn.

   A shadow passed across the road, extending far around the curve, as a cloud scudded across the sun.

   “Probably.” But what? That trees needed both order and chaos? Nylan frowned. True chaos would kill trees . . . wouldn't it? And what did the trees have to do with the future-another idea pushed forward by his subconscious that indicated how mixed up he was? He pushed the ideas to the back of his mind, then glanced upward. The sky remained the same mixture of sun and clouds, but the breeze seemed cooler without the sunlight.

   “How far to Lornth?” he asked after a time.

   “Another five days or so.”

   “Five days?” Nylan groaned.

   “Or so.”

   Nylan glanced at the road, at the seemingly endless range of ironwoods to his right. Maybe there were other ironwood areas. He couldn't believe that a stretch of ironwoods that took five days to ride was worthless.

   Then, a lot of Candar took some believing, starting with his own abilities and those of Ayrlyn. He shook his head, and shifted his weight in the saddle. Five more days?

   Weryl gurgled happily and jabbed an elbow into Ayrlyn's ribs again. She took his arm firmly and moved it. “No.”

   Nylan could almost feel the mental force of that denial.

   Weryl's face crumpled, and he began to cry.

   Ayrlyn shook her head. “He can't be allowed to hurt people.” Then she reached down and hugged him with one arm. “It's all right.”

   The boy sobbed for a few hundred cubits more, then stared at the cattle on the south side of the road once more. But he didn't jab Ayrlyn with his elbows again.

NYLAN LOOKED UP from the way station's hearth fire as Ayrlyn slipped inside, bearing Weryl's damp clothes. She left the sagging door open, mainly for light, since there was but a single window with loose-fitting shutters. Her hands were red from the cold stream water.

   The smith extended an arm to bar the silver-haired boy from nearing the few flames that rose from the shavings. “No.”

   Weryl looked puzzled, but stopped trying to climb over his father's limb.

   “He understands,” said Ayrlyn.

   “He's too young to understand. I learned that years ago in child psychology.”

   “Child psychology? You were an engineer.” Ayrlyn hung the undersquares and Weryl's trousers and shirt across a low roof brace. “He's going to need larger clothes before long. These are getting tight.”

   “I know. Maybe we can find a tailor or something in Lornth.”

   “Ha! People here make children's clothes.”

   “I forget about things like that.” Nylan added more of the pencil wood to the fire, his eyes half on Weryl as he did, but the boy remained on hands and knees, just looking at the small tongues of flame from the shavings that licked at the wood.

   “Child psychology?” prompted the healer. “You never answered.”

   “Distributional requirements. I wasn't from the Institute. I had to take courses at the university in something other than power physics. I thought I might have children some day; so child psychology seemed more useful than institutional behavior, sociology of the exotics, or alien metapsychology.” Nylan added another chunk of slightly larger wood to the growing hearth fire, glancing at the two pots that waited.

   “Child psychology or not, he understands 'no.' ”

   Nylan shrugged, wondering if Weryl were already sensitive to the order fields, if somehow he'd picked up on the emotional energy or disturbance or something associated with negatives. If so, they'd have to be careful, very careful. He wanted to groan again. It seemed like everywhere he turned, he had to be careful.

   “Why the groan?”

   “Because... if you're right, and Weryl understands no ...” He went on to explain the sensitivity problems.

   Ayrlyn bent down, picked up Weryl, and hugged him, then eased him into a more comfortable position. “You have to give him lots of affection. It can't be false, either, then, because he'll know the difference.”

   The engineer wanted to groan again. He didn't need a son who was an emotional lie detector. Then, his son hadn't exactly asked for the talent, and Nylan and Ayrlyn both had some abilities in that direction, as had Istril. Why was every talent a curse as well?

   He slipped a larger chunk of wood onto the fire and swung the single bracket that bore both pots over the flames. The wrought iron creaked and wobbled, as if it might pull out of the crudely mortared stones-but it held.

   “It will be a while before the stew, such as it is, is ready,” he said absently. “I'm glad you found those wild onions. They'll help with the seasoning.”

   Nylan folded the wax away from the cheese and carefully sliced small slivers so that they dropped onto outer cloth that had covered the wax. When he had a small stack, he offered the first to Weryl, who half-chewed, half-gummed the sliver before swallowing and opening his mouth for more.

   “He's hungry,” affirmed Ayrlyn, after sitting on the hearth stones and holding Weryl so that Nylan could feed him.

   “Aren't we all? That unplanned stop took more food.” The smith offered more cheese and glanced at the fire. “It's going to be a while.”

   “That's all right. He's going to need his exercise anyway.”

   “At least we've been making good time-and only one storm since we left your first hamlet-the one without a name.”

   “It has a name. I just never learned it.”

   “I'm glad they have some of these way stations. It's good to have a roof, especially with Weryl, and I get an uneasy feeling when I think about staying in an inn or in some of the towns.” .

   “The way stations are mostly for traders, I think. Lornth isn't nearly as well populated as the lands east of the Westhorns, and they need more trade, I'd guess.”

   “Wonder if that's because of the ironwoods. We've seen a lot of them.”

   Ayrlyn frowned.

   “It takes time, good tools, and manpower to clear them. They're not much good for anything, and some of the bigger ones you couldn't budge with heavy industrial equipment. That means it's a slow tedious business-”

   “That could be. I don't know.”

   Nylan crumbled more of the hard cheese into little pieces, and tried to coax more of it into Weryl's mouth. Without milk, trying to balance the nutrients for his son was hard, especially since fruits and vegetables weren't in season.

   “Have you ever wondered why we're doing this?” Nylan mused. “Here we are, riding almost blindly into a country that was an enemy. If you look at it rationally, it verges on the insane.”

   “Yes and no. Was it sane to stay in Westwind?” asked the healer.

   “Probably not, given Ryba's mindset.”

   “Would you rather have gone east, into Gallos?”

   Nylan grinned wryly. “No.”

   “What other direction could we head? Or would you prefer to hide out in the mountains for the rest of what would be quite short lives?”

   “When you put it that way, I feel a little better. A little.” Considering that he still hadn't the faintest idea of what he really wanted to do, except... except what? Survival wasn't anything except survival, and life had to be more than that. Didn't it? He shook his head.

 
 Weryl drooled out the last section of cheese, a whitish-yellow mess that oozed across Ayrlyn's wrist.

   “I think he's had enough,” Ayrlyn eased the child onto the packed clay floor and unstopped a water bottle to wash the small mess from her wrist onto the hearth stones. A sizzle followed when some of the water touched a coal.

   Nylan used a stick he had whittled clean to stir the stew, but kept his eyes on Weryl. “It's still going to be a while. Maybe you could get out the lutar and sing something?”

   “Later.” Ayrlyn glanced at Weryl, who was crawling rapidly toward the waystation's door and the twilight outside. “Later.” Nylan handed the stirring stick to Ayrlyn and hurried after his son.