The Magic of Recluce (24 page)

I still didn't have the answer I wanted, but Justen was staring into space, as if I had called him back into the past. So instead, I finished my mutton pie and let him stare.

“Your meal is paid for,” the gray wizard said some time later as I finished a redberry pastry. He stood up, pushing back the spoke-armed chair, and nodded. “I'll see you here at dawn.”

I nodded with a full mouth, but he was gone before I could swallow.

There wasn't much else to do except finish stuffing myself. Then I rose and walked out into the late afternoon, wrapping my brown cloak around me.

Fewer souls were visible in the square, but that might have been because of the thickening gray clouds and the few wispy flakes of snow that drifted across the stones with the gray winds.

In time, I retreated back to my room and lit the oil lamp.

With a sigh, I recovered
The Basis of Order
and opened it again. It was still boring, or I was tired, or both, and I turned out the lamp and climbed onto the bed for a nap.

When I awoke again it was pitch-dark, with only a single street lamp visible through the window. I ignored the growling in my stomach, and pulled off my clothes and climbed under the coverlet. Falling asleep was still easy.

S
HEEP—
I
HOPE
never to see another sheep as closely as I saw the sheep of Weevett, nor to smell them. By comparison, rancid butter smells better, at least if it is not
too
spoiled.

Like Justen, I wore a borrowed herder's jacket and trousers and boots, though I had to stuff some raw wool into the toes of the boots.

According to the gray wizard, what he was about to do was pure order-magic. “Just because it's ordered doesn't mean it's pleasant,” he added. “That's why I'm free to do as I please most of the rest of the time.”

I followed him from the rough shed to a pen or corral, where there must have been over a hundred of the black-faced creatures.

Urrrr…uppp
…My stomach protested, although my nose was already numb, and not from the chill of the wind. The sun beamed brightly but not warmly, and the wind whipped a thin coating of snow across the ground, scudding it into piles here and there against fence posts, in frozen ruts, and on the sheltered side of the empty wool-sheds.

Briskly, Justen strode over to the gate where a white-haired, lean, and tanned woman stood. Her hair was thick, nearly as short as mine, and she smiled openly at the wizard. Her gray leathers were clean, and half a step behind her stood a taller man, balding, wearing stained leathers and holding a crook.

“Justen…”

“Merella.”

Then I noticed the squad of crossbowmen ranged along one side of the shed behind the woman. Glancing in the other direction, I found a few other armed soldiers. My feet carried me after Justen.

“Who's the youngster?”

“My current assistant. This is Countess Merella of Montgren. Lerris, who understands order but not sheep.”

The countess's smile became a grin. “He didn't expect me. You never tell them, do you, wizard?”

Justen shrugged. “It works better that way.”

“Pleased to meet you, your highness.” I inclined my head, although I didn't know what you called a countess.

“It's good to see you, Lerris.” Then the smile was gone, replaced by a more businesslike look. “We lost too many because of the duke and the rains. Is there anything…? We separated put the cripples and brought the least-damaged ones.”

“We'll do what we can.” He turned to me. “The ewes to be bred this year come through the chute here one at a time. We check them to make sure they're as healthy as they look. If you feel something…”

“I tell you?” I asked.

Justen nodded, turning to the countess. “Lerris has a well-developed sense of order, and that will let me use my energies, I hope, on the cripples and the problems.”

“As you wish—so long as the results stand.” The countess's tone was neutral, although her voice was harder than before.

Justen looked at the herder. “Send one through alone first.”

…Bheeeaaaa
…A black-faced four-legged wooly heap bumbled down the chute—really, just two low fences set three cubits apart—that led from a gate in one corral to a second empty corral.

I tried to feel the sheep, and the action wasn't quite so hard as I had feared, since there was no sense of disorder, and even a faint underlying sense of scheme and order. Looking at Justen, I said. “She seems fine. No disorder, and a faint sense of order…health…”

He nodded. “Can you strengthen that order just a bit?”

I didn't know how.

“Watch and use your senses.”

So I did, and what he did to the sheep was like smoothing the grain of fine wood to bring out its natural flow. That's not quite right, but that's what it felt like.

“Send another one.”

With the second, I was able to do what the gray wizard had, with a little help, and by the fourth or fifth ewe I was working alone, with Justen watching. Until a larger ewe, perhaps the twentieth, came skittering down the chute.

Even before the animal got to me my stomach turned, and the beast seemed to glow in a whitish-red fire underneath its wool.

“Justen…this one…”

Even the gray wizard seemed to pale momentarily, but he just nodded to the head herder. “Pull this one out for the white corral.”

“Chaos?” asked the Countess. I had forgotten she still remained, watching the procedure.

Justen nodded as another herder guided the diseased, chaotic animal toward a smaller fenced area.

By then the flow of animals had increased, and I was breathing sheep, tasting wool, and feeling ready to
baaaa
myself.

In some of the ewes, the underlying order-flow was barely there, and those I strengthened as I could.

Black-face…
baaaaa
…oily wool-taste coating my tongue…
baaaa…splaaattt…
“Fine…” Black-face…“Pull this one…” Sheep gas…dung…oily wool-smells…
baaaa…

The parade of animals seemed endless—until the corral was empty.

I looked up, somewhat dazed. The countess had left somewhere in the middle of processing the first corral—when, I could not have said.

“Over here,” Justen said.

I thought I saw a few more silver hairs in his head, but that could have been my imagination. I trudged in the direction he pointed, my eyes burning, my stomach turning, growling and empty.

Across the field waited another large corral of sheep.

I glanced upward. The sun had not even reached mid-morning. “Oh…”

That was the way the morning went…ewe after ewe, with Justen looking grimmer and grimmer with each chaos-disordered ewe set aside.

By noon my eyes were blurring, and there must have been close to a hundred of the chaos-tinged ewes crowded into the white corral.

“Take a rest, Lerris.” Justen's voice was firm. “We'll get something to eat before we finish up here, and then ride over to the southern gathering.”

“There's more?”

Justen's smile was half-amused, half-grim. “You've just begun. Two days here, and another two days at the gatherings outside Vergren. There you don't get an inn the first night, just a pallet and a tent.”

I sagged against the split rails of the corral while Justen approached the white corral, remaining propped there while two herders funneled the ewes to him one by one. This time, he actually touched each one.

When he was finished, about two-thirds had been returned to the herd. The remaining animals milled around the corral.

With slow, measured steps, the gray wizard moved back toward me. The sun glinted on hair at least half silver, though his face seemed no more wrinkled, unlike the times after Frven.

“Why so much chaos?” I asked.

“How can you tell?” he responded, steadying himself on one of the low chute-rails.

“You've been withdrawn for the last two days, looking where only wizards look, and paying little or no attention to anyone. I don't know you, but it seems more than work.”

“You're right.” He shook his head. “Nature seeks balance, and Recluce went too far this time.” He frowned. “I hope,” he added under his breath.

At the last words, I frowned. “You hope Recluce went too far?”

“Not what I meant. I hope it is a question of natural balance.” He pushed himself away from the chute-rail and began to walk toward the middle shed. “Let's eat. They're setting up a table in one of the sheds.”

Dinner was a hot soup, cold sliced mutton and cheese, black bread and redberry preserves, and as much hot cider as I wanted. Unfortunately, to me it all tasted like oily wool. The food steadied me and stopped the protests from my guts. About the time I started to feel human again, we trooped out to start all over with another bunch of ewes.

Then I climbed on Gairloch and rode to the southern gathering grounds, where we worked until we could not see. I could barely finish supper before collapsing.

The next day was the same, and so was the day after, except that first we rode until nearly noon. On each day, the countess appeared for a time, looking nearly as grim as Justen.

The fourth day wasn't quite as bad, although it was after dark when we returned to the Weavers' Inn.

“Just take the robe in your room and follow me.”

“What…”

“We're taking a bath.”

And we did, in a small room off the kitchen, with hot water and soap, and for the first time since leaving Recluce I felt clean. We left the borrowed clothes there and wore the robes back to our rooms, where I found clean sheets on the bed, my own clothes cleaned and brushed, my boots shined, and a small purse with five gold pennies.

I thought I'd more than earned it.

By the time we actually dined the room was deserted, the fire low. We were served by the innkeeper himself. The veal was tender, the sauce succulent, and the golden wine like a fine autumn, perhaps the first time I had really enjoyed alcohol. Neither of us felt much like speaking until we had finished the main course and sat looking at a large redberry pastry.

“You did well, Lerris.”

“I see how you earn whatever they pay you,” I answered, returning the compliment as best I could. “That's hard work.”

“There hasn't been that much disorder since near the beginning,” mused the gray wizard, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“You mentioned Recluce. What did you mean?”

“I'd hoped that the Recluce efforts against the duke had rebounded, so to speak, but the signs aren't right. This is all too recent, almost as if…”

“As if what?” I took a small bite from the pastry.

He shrugged. “As if…well…as if you had gone with Antonin.”

“How could this happen? Does it take as much work to sow chaos as it took for us to heal it?”

“Less work. That's the problem. Destruction is almost always easier than construction. It's as though Verlya or Gerlis were working together with Antonin and Sephya. Or Sephya has gotten much stronger.” He shook his head again. “But that's hard to believe.” He sipped the golden wine.

“Chaos-masters don't work together?”

“Cooperation, beyond an apprentice-master or a male-female bond, is almost a contradiction in terms for chaos. Then again, the great ones seldom have to, since there are few to oppose them.”

“You oppose them,” I ventured.

“Not directly. I'm not order-pure enough for that.” He set down the glass. “I'm tired, and tomorrow we start for Jellico.”

“Another commission? More sheep?”

“Actually, in Jellico, it's seeds.”

“Seeds?”

“Good seeds beget good crops, and Certis grows oilpods, the kind they squeeze for the scented lamp-oil that Hamor prefers…”

I yawned. Some aspects of wizardry and order-mastery were still boring. At least, though, the seeds couldn't smell…I hoped.

O
FF TO THE
left was a line of trees that met the road about two kays ahead in what looked to be a grove. Under the pale blue sky, warmed by the winter sun, the frost and whatever snow might have fallen earlier had melted away from the road, and the stubble of the fields and occasional meadows.

Now that we had crossed the Montgren Gorge and passed into Certis, the occasional fenced field and extensive sheep meadows had largely given way to entirely fenced fields, now covered with maize stubble or other grain stalks. The huts were larger, and many even boasted woodlots back away from the road. But the landscape and the countryside were boring. After all, how much creativity is there in fences and huts? And how long can you pass them without being lulled into stupor by their similarities?

Justen did not talk that much, and I did not press the gray wizard.

Wheeee…uhhh
…Gairloch tossed his head, prancing for an instant, then slowing down.

Wheeee…eeee
. Whatever it was, Rosefoot agreed with Gairloch.

I looked at Justen.

“They're thirsty,” he said.

“Is that a stream up ahead?”

“I believe so. There is even a pavilion of sorts there, if I recall.”

“Pavilion?”

“A roof erected on four timbers, nothing more than a rain shelter.”

A rain shelter we didn't need, but it was probably better than stopping by the roadside.

The pavilion was there, but a nearby oak had pulled up its roots, toppled, and broken the ridgepole. Between the fallen green oak and the collapsed pavilion, most of the travelers' area was unusable, although a path worn by other travelers led down a drop of half-a-rod to the stream.

At the top of the incline, I dismounted and led Gairloch toward the water.

Whee…eeeee
…He tossed his head, and I studied the trees that stood back off the watercourse. I saw nothing. Then I tried to sense chaos. Nothing there either.

“Well…here you are…drink what you can.” I looped the reins over the saddle and got out my water bottle.

Wheeeee…eeeeee…

“I know it's not a warm stable, but it
is
decent water.” Standing upstream from Gairloch, I smelled the water, licked it from my hands, felt it with my mind. Nothing—just good cold water. So I drank some, scooping it up with my hands, while trying not to slip off the brown grass-tuft where I squatted. Then, after wiping my face on my sleeve, I filled the canteen and replaced it in its holder.

Justen—where was he?

I grabbed for the staff, then eased up the incline to the rest area.

The gray wizard was nowhere to be seen, but a man in a soldier's vest and a chain-mail shirt appeared from behind the mound of collapsed thatch, a plate skullcap secured with leather thongs. His sword was unsheathed and pointed in my direction.

“Another pilgrim…” His voice was raspy, his brown beard scraggly, and his step measured.

I could have outrun him, even to Gairloch, but I didn't know where Justen was and who might be with the soldier, and whether they might have a crossbow, a longbow, or a rifle. So I took an even hold on the staff, arranged my feet, and waited.

“What do you want?” I asked. It seemed like a fair question, even to a maniac with a glint in his eye and a sword in his hand.

“Just your horse and your money.”

“That's a bit much.”

“Damned pilgrim. You're all alike.”

Whssttt!

I let the first stroke pass by.

Whhsttt!

Thunk!
Even I was surprised at how unskillful he was, at watching his sword fly onto the hard clay.

I waited to see if he would go for the sword on the ground or the knife at his belt.

His eyes darted from mine to the staff and to the sword and back. Then he sighed. “Quarter?”

I nodded.

Click
.

I ducked and turned.

Swish
. The blade of the heavier man nipped the edge of my cloak, and I wished I had discarded it as I staggered sideways.

Thunk
.

Clank
. His foot skidded on something, and he stepped back.

I used the instant to duck out of my cloak, regaining a balanced stance and concentrating on the unshaven and grizzled veteran before me. His eyes were bloodshot, but his hands seemed steady enough.

His blade dipped, then turned.

I did not move, watching eyes and edge simultaneously.

He stepped back and sheathed the sword. “Damned wizards. Begging your pardon, ser, but I didn't know which kind you were.”

I tried not to let the confusion show as I looked from the one, who was trying to stand on a very sore leg, to the older man who watched us both.

Both soldiers' leather vests had two irregular light patches on the shoulders, with two small holes within the lighter colored space. Wing-like insignia had recently been removed.

Their chain-mail shirts scarcely qualified as armor, except to protect against spent arrows and weak slashes, but their swords had been serviceable enough.

Neither one bore the taint of chaos. Neither did they exactly radiate order. Which left the possibility of unpleasant mercenaries running out on their contracts and turning bandit. I wished Justen were around, but the gray wizard seemed to have vanished.

“Wizard problems?” I asked. “Just wizard problems?” I added.

The older man, mostly gray-haired although he did not look much older than Justen, spat onto the road. The younger looked at the sword lying on the frozen clay.

“You can get it, if it stays in the scabbard.” I did not relax my control of the staff until he sheathed the sword. “You still have to explain why I shouldn't do something unpleasant to you.”

“Ha! Begging your pardon, young wizard, but you can't.” The older soldier spat again and looked toward Gairloch, who had edged backwards, but otherwise made not a sound.

“That's not quite true, friend.” I smiled pleasantly. “I cannot do anything destructive, but what if I were to decide that with each unpleasant act you do, your nose would grow a thumb? Or that you would begin to grow again?”

“What…?” asked the one I had disarmed, looking toward me, then toward his companion.

The older man swallowed. “You're young to do that.”

I smiled again. “I don't know if I'd necessarily do it right, but even a mistake wouldn't hurt me, so long as I don't involve chaos.”

He blanched. “We're hungry.”

I nodded.

“That wizard, he didn't keep the duke from getting killed. Or the rain from getting the crops.”

“Why didn't you stay with the new duke? Dukes always need soldiers.”

The two looked back and forth.

I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the story, but I shifted my grip on the staff.

Finally, the younger one swallowed again. “Well…it wasn't our choice. Grenter—he was the squad leader—sent us out to round up some…pilgrims…”

I must have raised my eyebrows.

The older man added quickly, “This was under the old duke, you understand.”

“They must have heard about us coming. They were all gone from where they were staying.”

“Where was that?”

“In Freetown…the Travelers' Rest, it was called.”

“
Was
called?”

“The wizard burned it. He had a hard time, even with his helper. We didn't see that. Grenter sent us to find them before they left the city.” The younger ruffian looked around, then back at me, and swallowed.

A thin cloud drifted across the pale sun and the wind picked up, throwing a few dry leaves onto the roadway.

“We caught up, Herris here and me and Dorret and Symms, with two of their women. Hard blond woman and a looker, black-haired. I wish we hadn't found them. Dorret never knew what happened.”

“What
did
happen?” I prompted.

“The blond put a throwing knife through his throat so quick I didn't see it happen. He's down gurgling and clutching at his neck, and Symms jerks out his blade and tries to spit her. Except that the looker has a blade, and she makes him look like a recruit.”

The older man, Herris, coughed and spat.

I looked at him.

“Fydor has it right,” he acknowledged.

“There were still two of you.”

Herris glared at me. “The nasty blond had two knives left and she wanted to use them both. The other woman's a born killer. She never raised a sweat, and she smiled when she killed Symms.”

“So you let them go?”

They looked back and forth. Finally, the younger one looked at the ground and said. “I yelled for help, and the second squad came from the other side of the market, not all of them, but there were three.”

“Don't tell me that two women butchered them, too?” I let my voice get sarcastic, even though I was enjoying hearing how Wrynn and Krystal had mangled some of the duke's forces.

“Not all of them. One guy, Gorson, got away with just losing his right hand and a shoulder wound. They killed the other two.”

“And you two just left them?”

They both looked down.

Finally, Herris spat again. “They were witches. They were from Recluce. No way I'd go against devils like that.”

“Where did they go?”

Fydor shrugged, his eyes avoiding mine. “I'd guess they went to Kyphros. The autarch likes good women blades. They didn't take this road, and that leaves the mountain road or the coast.”

“Ser wizard, you don't look all that surprised…” Herris still didn't look at me.

“I've crossed blades with the dark-haired one.”

“Blades?”

“Staff against blade.”

Herris stepped back. “I'm real sorry, ser. Real sorry. Wish I'd never met either one of you.”

Fydor followed his example and backed away.

Then both of them were walking quickly, almost running, looking over their shoulders as they headed back in the direction of Weevett.

I watched them go, my mouth half-open.

“Very impressive, young Lerris.” Justen sat astride Rosefoot, next to the toppled oak, watching, as I suspected he had been all along.

That he had left me to fight them alone angered me, even as I was proud that I had managed it. But Justen wouldn't care one way or the other. “How did you do that without the heat waves?”

Justen smiled. “That takes practice. You could do it right now with the distortion lines, but you have to equalize the temperature on both sides of the mirror to avoid what you call heat waves.”

“You didn't answer the question.”

“I'll explain some of it while we ride. The rest is in your book. Rosefoot had a drink while you were dispatching that pair.” Justen did not move the reins, but Rosefoot turned and carried him from the clearing in the wayside grove and back onto the main roadway.

“My book?”

“Lerris, it doesn't take a mind reader to see your thoughts. You're clearly from Recluce. You have the talents to be a first-class order-master, and you were surprised—not curious, but surprised—to see my copy of
The Basis of Order
.” The gray wizard looked ahead, toward the southwest.

I ignored him and went to get Gairloch, not that I had far to go. He waited just at the top of the incline. I almost fell off him, scrambling into place and trying to catch up with Justen and Rosefoot.

More smoke plumes rose into the pale blue sky, angling toward the northwest. Behind the wind, I could see clouds building again, over the hills in the distance to the southeast. With the warmth of the sun and the southern air might come rain, or worse, sleet.

“How far to Jellico?” I asked as we came abreast of him.

“More than another day.”

“How many other towns are there along the way?”

The gray wizard smiled faintly. “A scattering, though few with inns, and fewer still even the size of Weevett or Howlett.”

We rode a time further before I asked another question. “How can you hide in plain sight so that I cannot see you or the heat waves?”

“That is the same question.” The gray wizard coughed and cleared his throat before continuing. “What is sight?”

I tried not to sigh. I asked a simple question, and, instead of an answer got another question. “Sight is when you see someone or something.”

Justen sighed. “What is the physical process of sight? Did not anyone teach you that?”

I looked as puzzled as I felt, not understanding what he had in mind.

“Light comes from the sun, chaotic white light. It strikes an object and reflects from that object. The act of reflection partially orders the light. Those reflected rays enter your eyes. What you see is not the object at all, but the light reflected from that object. That is why you cannot see when there is no light. Now it really is not that simple, but those are the basics. Do you understand what I mean?”

I wasn't
that
dense. “Of course, my eyes see a reflection of reality, not reality itself. That means that when I feel things, that feeling may be truer than sight?”

Justen nodded, without taking his eyes from the road or looking at me. “Remember that some real things cannot be felt, and many chaos-touched objects are not real but can hurt nonetheless. But you are right.” He cleared his throat again. “There are many ways not to be seen, but they all involve two ideas. The first is touching someone's thoughts so that they do not know they have seen something. That is the chaos-way because it destroys a link between perception and reality.”

“The way of order?” I prompted.

“That is much more complicated…”

I nodded at that. Anything involving order was more complicated.

“Light is not straight like an arrow, not exactly, but like a wave upon the ocean. Light can be woven with the mind, although it takes practice, and you weave the light around you so that it never quite touches you. Actually, it is not difficult as an exercise, but using it can be very dangerous unless your nonvisual perceptions are well-developed.”