Wellspring of Chaos (28 page)

“Is that all you have to say?” Kharl asked.

The woman stopped and half turned. “What else would you have me say?”

“I don’t know… You have a certain power yourself…”

She laughed once more. “Nothing at all, a trifle. When you see true black power, you will understand that. At least, I would hope so. Good day, carpenter.” She turned and walked through the grass and northward into the bushes… and then disappeared.

Kharl just looked for a time, then shook his head. He studied the mound once more, but could find nothing beyond the ancient sadness and strange buried combination of order and chaos. He finally walked back to Hill Road and downhill toward the harbor. When he reached Third Circle, remembering what the harbor patroller had said, he turned southwest, searching for a cafe or tavern that looked both inviting and not terribly costly.

In the first block he walked along after turning off Hill Road, he passed a goldsmith’s, then a coppersmith’s and a jeweler’s, while on the south side of the street, he could make out a shop window filled with fine cabinetry of all types, and another displaying a gray cloak trimmed in a gold brocade. A tall gray-haired woman in shimmering black trousers, a white shirt, a gray jacket—and the paired shortswords at her belt—nodded as she passed him. An older man, also well dressed, but in a rich dark gray tunic and jacket and without weapons, smiled politely.

Kharl had the definite feeling that, while there might be taverns on Third Circle, his wallet would be far lighter if he stopped in any of them. He decided to walk another block or so before heading down closer to the harbor.

“Carpenter! Ser!”

Kharl turned at the call, because he couldn’t imagine anyone calling him that unless it was someone from the Seastag. He saw a sailor standing beside a patroller outside a shop across the street. In the doorway was a tradesman in a leather vest, gesturing animatedly to the patroller.

Kharl crossed the street and stopped several cubits short of the trio, now standing in front of a narrow window displaying various items crafted from silver. It took a moment for him to recall the sailor’s name. “Yes, Flasyn?”

“Ser… they think I took something… but I didn’t.”

“Wexalt says that your sailor made off with an object from his counter.” The patroller was an older but muscular woman in the same armless blue tunic as those worn by the harbor patrollers. She held a similar truncheon, with the shortswords at her belt, and inclined her head to the tradesman.

Kharl disliked the tradesman on sight, although his face was open and guileless, and he offered an apologetic smile. “Can’t afford to lose things these days.”

The words were false, genuine as they sounded, and Kharl tried not to show his dislike and skepticism.

“Ser… I didn’t take nothing… I didn’t.”

Kharl looked at the patroller, then at the merchant, who carried the faintest hint of the unseen white chaos. “What is he supposed to have taken?”

“He lifted a silver rose. He must have dropped it when he knew he’d been seen.”

Kharl looked at Flasyn. “Why were you in the silversmith’s shop?”

“Ser… my Berye… she… well… I was lookin‘ for something special for her, but he told me to leave, and seem’ as I wasn’t welcome, I left straightaway…”

The man’s words felt true, and Kharl turned to the merchant. “Do you do the silver work?”

“What sort of…”

“I just wondered. You don’t seem like a silversmith.”

“My brother handles that. I take care of the accounts.” Kharl nodded, looking more directly at the man. “Did you see Flasyn take this rose?”

“It was missing. No one else was in the shop recently.” Kharl forced a smile. “That could well be, but that does not mean Flasyn took it, or that anyone did. That’s why I asked if you had seen him take it.” The carpenter fingered his beard. “Can you honestly say you saw this rose in the shop just before Flasyn came in?”

“He’s the thief! You should be questioning him.” Kharl turned to Flasyn. “Did you touch anything in his shop?”

“No, ser. Couldn’t have. Only things that are out are big stuff, trays.” The patroller looked at Kharl and the dark staff, then at the merchant, then back at Kharl. “Is that staff yours?”

“It is, ser.”

“Where did you get it, if I might ask?”

“It was given to me in Nylan by the Brethren who—”

“Thought so.” The patroller looked to the merchant. “Do you really want to make that complaint, Wexalt?”

The merchant licked his lips nervously. “I could have been mistaken, I suppose. It is missing, but I didn’t see him take it…”

“I thought it might be something like that…” The patroller smiled at Kharl. “Better take your man back to your ship, ser.”

“We’ll be heading back.” Kharl fixed his eyes on Flasyn. “Now.”

“Ah… yes, ser.”

As he turned toward the harbor and the outer pier that held the Seastag, Kharl did hear the patroller’s words.

“… better be more careful, Wexalt… real staff… no one can even hold one of those unless it’s theirs… anyone who holds one doesn’t lie… you’d look like a fool… and if anything happens to one of those blackstaffers… doesn’t often… usually anyone who tries ends up dead… not too patient with games that hurt folk…”

Kharl had hoped to have a bite to eat, but he was going to have to forgo that. He also had more to think about, especially about the comments of the woman on the hillside.

In the growing darkness of the late-fall evening, Kharl stood on the quarterdeck by the gangway, looking blankly down at the white stones of the pier, then up to the west, above the hills beyond Southport. There, the sky was fading from a deep purple to a violet blackness, and the stars were so clear that they seemed not to twinkle at all. The air was still comfortably warm, and only a hint of a breeze blew in from off the Eastern Ocean to the south.

“Any of the crew back yet, carpenter?”

Kharl turned to face Furwyl. “Not yet, ser.” Except for Flasyn, and he wasn’t about to mention that to the first.

“Most of them won’t be back until after Bemyr relieves you. They missed shore leave in Ruzor. Be harder for some of them here.”

Since Furwyl seemed in a talking mood, Kharl asked, “Why would that be?“

“Southport’s another place where the Legend is strong. Marshal of Southwind is a woman. Women run things. You saw those twin short-swords the Arms carry?”

“They’re Westwind-type blades, aren’t they?”

“That they are, and they can throw them as well as use one in each hand. Most women here are armed, and they won’t hesitate to use them. They’ll also use them on any man who seems to be getting the better of a woman. That said… some of them like sailors a lot, but they want to do the choosing. Some of the crew have a hard time with that.”

“What happens?”

“The captain has to pay their way out of the wayfarers’ gaol.” Furwyl laughed. “Usually means they end up owing a good chunk of their crew share to the captain. They remember that. It’s about the only thing that some of them recall. Let me know if there’s any trouble. I’ll be in my cabin.”

While the first’s cabin was little more than a pantry-sized oblong with two bunks, he didn’t usually have to share it with anyone, Kharl reflected. “Yes, ser.”

The deck was empty, and dim, the only lights being the stem and stern night lanterns, and the larger lantern that shed faint illumination on the quarterdeck and the top of the gangway.

It had been a strange day, as many had been in the past two seasons. Something had happened to him. Everyone looked at him differently. But was that just because of the staff? Or had they always and he just hadn’t seen it? Or had it happened sometime in the last eightdays? He fingered his beard.

It couldn’t be just the staff. He’d been having problems with some people before that. He’d angered Egen by keeping him from Sanyle. Why had he done that? Not because anyone had told him, but because he had felt that what Egen had been doing was wrong. Why had he felt that? Because he had felt it. There wasn’t a better answer.

He nodded slowly.

That suggested to him that doing the right thing was attuned to order, to the blackness he had seen in Nylan, in the druids, and in the strange woman on the hillside. He had always sensed it, but never thought much about it. He had just accepted those feelings, but others had not. Charee had been more concerned with how what he did affected the family. While Charee would never have harmed anyone, she also would not have gone out of her way to help someone if it might cause trouble for her or her children. Kharl had done what he felt was right, without thinking, and the result had been disastrous.

He frowned again. He didn’t want to be like Charee—he couldn’t be that way. Yet doing as he had been doing was going to get him in trouble again, before long. What could he do differently?

He laughed softly to himself. The answer was what the woman on the hill had said—to think about how to use his enhanced senses. Not to act thoughtlessly from his feelings but to learn to think about how to act in response to others’ actions. In a way, he had done that with Flasyn, without truly understanding why. He’d only known that saying that the merchant was the thief would have only made matters worse.

Kharl looked out to the white oblong that was the pier. Despite the lack of light, it seemed clear enough to him. His night sight had always been good, but lately, or since leaving Brysta, it had seemed even better. But was it his eyes?

Musing on that thought, he closed his eyes and tried to sense the pier and the gangway. Even without looking, they seemed clear to him. Was that just his imagination?

He concentrated on the nearest part of the Seastag’s railing, then reached out and tried to place his hand just above the varnished surface. He opened his eyes.

Even in the dimness he could tell that his fingers were but a span above the wood, and for the first time, he knowingly perceived the difference between what he was sensing and what he was seeing. He shivered as he stood there on the quarterdeck in the darkness, a darkness that was far less than that to him.

What next? He had a little more power than he once had had. He frowned. No… he had known that the staff had given him some power, or he had thought it had been the staff, but from what the mage in Nylan had said, the two druids in Diehl, and the woman on the hill, and what he had just discovered… he had always had the ability. He just had not known it. His life had been like that—always learning late what he should have known earlier.

That would have to change. How… he wasn’t quite sure, but whether it meant reading more of The Basis of Order and trying to find things in the book that he could do—or try—he had to so something more than travel and watch and react.

He had to.

Three days later, the Seastag steamed out of Southport and headed westward. Kharl found himself glad to be at sea, because he’d spent much of the in-port time working with a shipwright)to replace the metal rigging fittings that the Gallosian cannon had damaged or blown away. He’d decided against any more expensive meals, and read several more chapters of The Basis of Order. After three and a half days at sea, when Seastag tied up at a rickety wooden pier in Dellash, Kharl was still trying to figure out how he could put some of what he read into actual practice.

No one had told Kharl much about Dellash, so that he’d finally had to ask Ghart, who had told him that Dellash was the port on the isle of Esalian. That Kharl had known, but not that it had been held by Lord Fentrel until, less than ten years before, the Duke of Delapra had enlisted a renegade wizard to bring down the hold around Fentrel, then taken the isle.

The Seastag was the only ocean trader in the port that afternoon, and Kharl had taken The Basis of Order up on deck to read, since he would be taking the evening in-port deck watch once more. He had settled himself on the foredeck, with his back against the railing, out of the brisk northerly wind, and was debating where to begin, when he heard voices.

“… run a tight ship, Hagen…”

“… don’t keep a ship unless you do, honored Synadar. Would you like to go below to discuss matters?”

“… nothing to discuss we can’t say out here. You have the brimstone?”

“That we do—all hundred and fifty stone. It was a rather costly cargo.“

Kharl frowned. The customs enumerator at Ruzor had claimed the brimstone was two hundred stone. Or was the other fifty stone for another buyer? That had to be the answer, but Kharl wondered who the other buyer might be.

“How so?”

“The Prefect of Gallos wished to purchase it. We had to leave Ruzor rather quickly.”

“And you sold him none?”

“No,” replied Hagen. “I did not know for whom you acted. Were it him, I saved you coins. Were it someone at odds with him… that would have been even less wise.”

“Some captains would not have shown such… restraint…”

“Some captains might call it stupidity to overlook a quick and high profit,” replied Hagen. “Those are the ones who will die coinless or with a knife in the back.”

“Stupidity? You have such contempt for extra coins?”

“I like coin as much as the next man,” Hagen said. “But you don’t enjoy them by betraying committed buyers. Not for long.”

“Such noble words, such honesty…” Synadar’s laugh was mocking. “So ethical…”

Hagen laughed. “You have your cargo of brimstone. Would you have it were it not so?”

“No… but you would not have ported here.”

“Nor would I have ever been able to, and what would that have cost me, year after year?”

“So much for your vaunted honesty, Hagen…”

“Are you ready to have it off-loaded?”

“Such haste.”

“Haste indeed,” Hagen agreed. “Haste to obtain your coins. You surely understand that?”

“I have them in the strongbox. Come… you can inspect them and begin off-loading.”

Kharl did not budge as the two men moved away.

He had felt Hagen’s honesty, and the chaotic dishonor of the trader. Hagen had acted fairly and honorably, but under the guise of self-interest, and the trader had accepted self-interest even while he had scorned the ideas of fairness. Was that deception on Hagen’s part?

Did the book have any passages on deception and honesty? Kharl began to leaf through the pages until he found a section that looked like it might address his questions.

The greatest danger in practicing deception is not the reaction of others, whether it be anger or cupidity. A greater danger is the cultivation of contempt for that which is. Deception is a practice of contempt, contempt for those whom one would deceive, and contempt for the world as it is. Just as understanding what is must be the first step toward using order, contempt for a true vision is the first step toward being the tool of power rather than its enlightened user…

Kharl nodded. That made sense, but it didn’t offer him anything to do…

He kept reading. In time, he came to another section.

… often those inexperienced in using order will force raw order upon an object, thinking that such an effort will strengthen the object. Such an effort will indeed strengthen the object, even as it weakens the one who attempts this, but only so long as the would-be mage lavishes his strength. When his strength is spent, the object will become once more as it was. Far better is to study the object, and to learn how it is tied together with order and chaos, and to gently change those bonds in keeping with what the object is, for if weak bonds are properly replaced by strong bonds within the object itself, those bonds will remain strengthened, just as black iron remains stronger than iron forged without ordering…

Kharl sat up. He had black iron on his staff, and there were iron brackets in the carpenter shop. Could he compare the two somehow? He closed the book and stood, uncoiling in the brisk afternoon wind and stretching, before heading below.

The shop was empty, and Kharl eased his staff out of the overhead bin where he had replaced it and set it on the narrow bench against the bulkhead. Then he took out an iron bracket and set it on the bench, directly beside the banded section at one end of the staff.

He looked at the two metals. The black iron was darker, indeed blackish to the sight, while the iron of the bracket was a duller gray. He couldn’t compare their weights, and he already knew that the black iron was harder. So he closed his eyes and tried to sense the difference between the two. Almost instantly, he could feel the aura of darkness tied to the black iron.

He opened his eyes, and he still saw the difference. Was that because he was learning how to use some sort of order-sensing? He tried to sense the linkages or ordering within the black iron. At first, nothing happened. All he could feel was the order-darkness. But he knew there was more there. He tried to see if he could sense a difference in the grain of the metal. That made a difference, because the iron bracket somehow felt rough, almost jagged, in comparison to the black iron bands on the staff.

Could he make plain iron into black iron? Somehow, the bracket looked large and heavy, even though it was only slightly larger than his hand and but a fraction of a thumbspan in thickness. Kharl bent down and looked in the bins below the bench, where he found an iron nail. He straightened and set it on the bench beside the staff.

Then he concentrated on sensing just how the black iron felt, how the grain of the metal almost locked together. Could he somehow smooth the “roughness” of the nail into a pattern like that of the staff bands? He tried just imagining, visualizing that change. Nothing happened.

Could he use his order-sense more like a forge hammer, in a regular rhythm, striking, shaping?

How long he concentrated on that Kharl was not sure, except that a good quarter glass had passed, and the nail was darker—not quite with the smooth orderedness of the staff’s black iron, but far more ordered and… solid.

As he looked at the nail, he felt light-headed and had to reach out and steady himself with a hand on the bench. He looked down at the iron nail once more, which was no longer gray iron, but a form of black iron.

“I did it…” he murmured.

But he felt so weak—and all for a little nail.

He sat down on Tarkyn’s stool and took out the book. Doggedly, he began to skim through pages.

Black iron should only be created while being forged… attempting to change less-ordered cold iron into black iron is possible only with great effort, enough to exhaust even the strongest of mages…

Kharl didn’t know whether to shake his head or laugh. Once more, he had almost gotten himself into danger because he hadn’t been patient enough. He took a deep breath, then reached out and slipped the black iron nail into his wallet. Sometime, he might find a use for it, but if not, it might be a good reminder that he needed to try to learn more before he acted.

Then, that had always been his problem—except where he had not acted at all.