The Death of Chaos (34 page)

South of Hrisbarg, Freetown [Candar]

As THE SKY lightens, the Duke watches the far hillside, but the balloon does not rise with the dawn, nor does the smoke from the Freetown cookfires. Only a handful of cyan banners drop in the still air. No fog created by the breath of troops wreathes the hill from where the Freetown cannon had fired their deadly shots the day before.

   “Scouts!” demands Berfir, pushing his mount to the crest of the hill, from where he can survey the Freetown position.

   “Ser?” asks the stocky officer who rides up beside him.

   “Colaris's forces have abandoned their position. That's what it looks like.”

   “Why would they do that?”

   Berfir nods grimly, his eyes flicking back to his own most recent trenchworks, the thin lines of red-clad troops-and the rows of mounds 'that lie on the downside of the hill. “I don't know. The cannon are gone.” He gestures. “It looks like they even left supplies, and if that's so...”

   “I understand, ser.” The stocky man salutes.

   “We may reach Freetown yet.”

   “If they don't have those demon-damned long guns, ser...”

   “Or if we can overtake them and capture them,” suggests the Duke.

   “Wouldn't mind having a few, ser, long as they're pointed away from us.”

   Berfir's laugh dies away as he purses his lips, studying the seemingly empty Freetown position. “Why... ?”

   The scout officer waits.

   “Check if it's clear to take their position-and those supplies. Then we'll see... then we'll see.” He fingers his salt - and - pepper beard, before his fingers go to the captured pistol at his belt. “We'll see...”

AFTER KRYSTAL LEFT for Kyphrien, still favoring the injured arm, and trying not to, I fed Gairloch and the mare. Then I went back into the kitchen.

   “Master Lerris, how can I clean if everyone-”

   I stopped just inside the door. “Do you know where Merrin-the coppersmith-is, or Borlo, the other one?”

   “Merrin? She is the queer Southwind woman who works with copper?” Rissa pushed back her hair off her damp forehead with one hand, and set the broom against the side of the wall with the other.

   “That's the one. I need hinges for a chest.” I'd kept putting it off, and now the chest might even be late if I didn't get on with it, but I hated to depend on others.

   “Most crafters use Borlo, and he has lived in Kyphrien for a long time. His shop is off the market square on the artisan's street. Now, his father! Neltar was a coppersmith, and the kettles he made! Guysee, when times were better and she was Morten's housekeeper, she showed me one of those kettles. Morten, he had three of them, and one of them whistled a simple tune.” Rissa offered a half-smile and shook her head. “How things change, but that kettle, I never did hear... and oh, what a kettle it looked to be...”

   I held up a hand. “What have you heard about Merrin?” I'd heard enough about Borlo. When someone praises a crafter's father, it usually means that the younger crafter isn't nearly so good.

   “That one! She dresses like a blade or a man, and perhaps she was, for there are blades upon the wall, and once she ran the merchant Fusion out of her shop...”

   At that point I was almost ready to hire Merrin. I hadn't cared much for Fuston the one time I'd run across him, either.

   “... and they said that the heir, the one called Liessa, she has commissioned works from the woman.”

   I nodded. “Where might I find Merrin?”

   “Always, always, you look for the troublesome ones, Master Lerris... Borlo is a nice man, always so polite...”

   “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.

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.