The Magic of Recluce (33 page)

C
LING
.

“Wonder who it is?” mumbled Destrin.

I looked at Bostric. He stood there, plane in hand. I looked at him hard and he jumped, setting down the tool and hastening to the door.

Despite the late spring warmth in the air outside, Destrin had the window closed, a low fire in the hearth, and an old and raveled sweater on under his apron as he worked on yet another tavern bench.

The work was going well enough, but every time I patted myself on the back, it seemed like something like the stable flood occurred. Regular storms I couldn't attribute to disorder or Antonin. Even after my experience an eight-day earlier in the Street of Harlots, I couldn't blame the weather on Antonin, and that was the problem. How could I separate what belonged to Fenard from whatever the chaos-master was weaving?

The other problem was that there wasn't all that much I knew how to do in working with order. Yes, I could provide support for Destrin, reinforce Bostric's basic goodness, and help a few good souls resist the twists of chaos sent forth by whoever was sending them forth. But beyond that? I shook my head slowly.

“You all right, Lerris?” Destrin bent toward me.

“I'm fine.” And I was. Winter had departed, and I enjoyed the spring, watching Deirdre, and visiting the market. I just didn't enjoy the heat in the shop.

Wiping my forehead, I studied the grain of the white oak, asking myself again why I had agreed to do a writing desk. Without Dorman's faded plan book, I would have been in even bigger trouble. Even so, it took all of my concentration to visualize the desk, to mentally draw the pieces from where they lay buried in the wood, and try to fit them together.

That sort of mental exercise helped, not only in crafting, but somehow in beginning to understand more of
The Basis of Order
. I had read and re-read the slim volume, and half of it was still unclear. As was the desk for Dalta, Brettel's daughter, the desk he wanted as a wedding gift. That made the third piece he had commissioned, far more than he needed to do even as a friend of Destrin's. Dalta would have an entirely furnished house before long, and she wasn't even betrothed!

“Here, ser.” Bostric handed a flat envelope to Destrin, then returned to smoothing the kitchen table we had roughed out together.

I knew I was forcing the red-haired youth, even more than Sardit had forced me, but how much time I had I didn't know, certainly not enough, however long it might be, to carry him through a full apprenticeship. Already his touch was defter than that of Destrin, and while Deirdre was older than Bostric, a few years was not insurmountable, and he was kind enough at heart.

I repressed a sigh. How had I gotten into this mess?

“Lerris!”

I glanced up. Destrin had paled. “Accufff…accuu…” He grasped for the bench.

Bostric looked to me.

“Just get the line right,” I told him as I walked around the end of the bench.

“Look at this.” Destrin rasped, thrusting the heavy paper at me.

I glanced over the announcement.

That was the standard language. Underneath, a different hand had penned in darker ink, “Destrin the Woodcrafter, quarterly levy, five golds.”

Originally, the tax bill had showed three golds, but the three had been crossed out and the five written above it. The change bore the initial “J.” A heavy blue-waxed seal had been affixed at the bottom.

“…can meet the first one…but we won't eat much but barley soup. There is no way I can make the second one, even at year-end. We can't afford the wood for the holiday buyers if I have to pay five golds.” Destrin leaned against his bench, his breath coming more quickly.

Looking at the thin man, I could see the distress. His system was wasting away, bit by bit, even with the order-strength I had quietly added to his wasting frame. I didn't know enough to stop the degeneration, only to give him energy and keep it at bay.

“We'll find a way,” I assured him, keeping my voice confident, even as I wondered how.

“But…how?” The old crafter gulped for air. “…Accuuu…accc…aaccc…”

“We'll find a way,” I looked back at my workbench and the white oak. “Starting with the desk for Brettel.” I wondered, though. Just as the shop was beginning to rise significantly above the expenses, the levy went up. The last levy had only been a gold and five silvers. It had been doubled, and then someone had added another two golds—scarcely coincidental, I felt, but who was I to say?

Who set and collected taxes went beyond my knowledge. I was having enough trouble with woodcrafting and trying to read and learn
The Basis of Order
.

“You need something to drink after that,” I added. “Come on. Let's see what Deirdre has.”

Destrin looked puzzled, as well he might, for I had not pushed him quite so hard before; but his face had gone beyond pale into a grayish shade, before I added just another trace of order to his struggling heart and practically took all his weight—not that he was that heavy any longer—as I helped him up the stairs.

“I'm…all right…”

I didn't say anything as he leaned on me and crossed the room to his favorite chair.

Her face calm, Deirdre had set down the cushion she was working on and crossed the large room to meet us. She said nothing, just looked from Destrin, still clutching the tax bill in his clawed hands, to me. Then she went to the shelf and poured a mug of redberry as I eased Destrin into the battered armchair.

As the old crafter sipped the juice, I nodded to Deirdre. “I've got to check Bostric,” I explained as I left. That much was true. It had to be. The more I learned about order, the more fearful I was of self-deception, knowing that I practiced it all too often anyway.

The other thing I was going to do was open the windows so Bostric and I didn't die of heat poisoning.

“C
APTAIN
T
ORRMAN WANTS
you to take the hill path and hold it against the rebels,” announces the messenger, spewing forth the words in one long burst before taking a deep breath.

The squad leader looks at the messenger. “When? Are we expecting the entire army of the Duke of Hydlen to reinforce us?”

A bewildered expression crosses the youngster's face. “That was the order…”

The squad leader takes a slow and silent breath, then purses her lips. The wind whips her short black hair away from her face, and the black eyes turn full on the messenger. “We have the message.”

The youngster shrivels under the darkness of her gaze, then salutes. “Will that be all, leader?”

“Tell Captain Torrman that we will accomplish his objective.”

“What, leader?”

“Tell the captain that we will accomplish his objective.” Her soft voice is even colder, and the bells that ring in it are the bells of a funeral dirge. “Provided he guards the southwest road to Gallos,” she adds.

“Provided he guards the southwest road to Gallos?” The messenger repeats the words.

“That is correct. He must use the rest of his forces to hold the southwest pass.”

The messenger sits astride the pony, his mouth not quite hanging open.

“That will be all,” the officer adds. “You may convey my reply to Captain Torrman.”

The messenger looks from the cold-eyed woman to the troopers behind her. One fingers a knife, and the messenger looks back to the officer.

“That will be all,” she repeats.

The messenger swallows and lifts the reins, then nudges the pony back downhill.

The squad leader looks down at the valley to the north, then at the folded square of the map she had needed and paid too much for, for all that many others would have said she paid little indeed of true value. She takes one breath, then another. Despite the cold bath of the night before last, she feels unclean, as if she had not bathed in weeks. Her hand touches the hilt of her blade. Her head lifts, and she studies the hills to the east.

The trooper beside the squad leader swallows as he watches his superior study the map. He edges his mount sideways toward another woman, a blond woman with a pair of knives at her belt, the only other woman trooper in the squad.

“She's not going to follow the captain's orders…” he whispers.

“Look down there,” returns the blond, gesturing at the roiling dust rising from the road at the far end of the small valley they survey. The packed figures of the soldiers are not visible, but both know they are there. “Would you?”

“Torrman's killed leaders for less…”

“All right…” The woman wearing the leather officer's vest looks at the two whispering subordinates, then urges her mount to the east, not toward the hill path below, but along the ridge line.

“That's not where Torrman ordered us…”

The squad leader ignores the not-quite-whispered statement drifting up from the third file as another trooper grabs the protester by the tunic.

“…remember Gireo, you idiot…”

The swallowed gulp almost brings a smile to the blond woman's face, but the squad leader's eyes remain fixed on the space between the hills.

“…don't like this…”

“…just shut up…”

“…Torrman's a mean bastard…gut the whole squad…”

“…she's right. Take the hill path, and you won't have any guts left for Torrman…”

“…still don't like it…”

“…got any better ideas?”

Even with all the mutterings, the squad follows the black-haired officer as she picks her way toward the combination dam/levee that holds the irrigation water for the year's crops. The heavy-set man, the one who had gulped, looks from the hill road below to the dust-cloud heralding the advance of the Freetown rebels.

The officer's eyes flicker from the dust-cloud at the northeastern end of the narrow valley to the trail before her and to one of the aqueducts that carry the water beyond the valley and toward the dry steppes of Southern Kyphros. One hand touches the thin oilcloth-wrapped bundle behind her saddle, then strays toward the second and heavier set of saddlebags.

The dust cloud has moved perhaps a third of the way across the valley, another two kays, when the squad leader dismounts under the iron-bound gates of the dam. The cold iron reinforces every joint and every red-oak timber, bracing the iron-hinged floodgates closed.

Above her and to the south rise the stone walls that contain the four aqueduct channels. An iron wheel rises above each tunnel, but each wheel is locked in place with an iron bar and a double lock. The locks are each the size of a farmer's fist.

The squad leader shakes her head as she studies the floodgates and the iron-bound timbers that hold them closed.

“…what…”

“…shhh…knows what she's doing…”

Finally she retrieves an iron bar perhaps two-thirds the length of her arm from the oilcloth-wrapped bundle behind her saddle, then a short, rough-toothed bow saw. She carries both with her as she again approaches the water gates.

“The olive groves may suffer,” she says to no one, “but if the autarch could do it, so can we.” After scanning the timbers, she begins to pry the iron edging away from one.

Puzzled expressions cross several faces, but her squad remains mounted, waiting.

As she pries the edging away from the wood and exposes the red beneath, she halts.

“Kassein.”

The heavy-set man dismounts, handing the reins to the blond woman. “Yes, sher?”

“Take this saw. Cut through this timber as far as you can—until the saw begins to bind.”

“Bind?”

“The wood will try to grab it.” She walks to another timber, and begins to pry.

The blond trooper hands the reins of two horses to a third man, dismounts, and walks up to the leader. “I can do this better.”

The squad leader nods and hands the pry bar to her. “I'm going up on top. I'll leave the second saw. Weaken as many as you can.” Five quick steps carry her back to her mount. “Darso, you stay here and help with the sawing. Altra and Ferl will stand guard, just in case. Take turns with the saw.”

“I'm not…”

“I know. You're cavalry, not a carpenter. But if you don't saw, you'll be dead cavalry. You can tie the horses to that root there.”

Back in the saddle, she nods at the remaining five troopers, and all six begin to pick their way along the slanting trail to the north, round and toward the top of the dam.

…creeakkkk
…

…skkkraawwww…skrawaaawwww
…

When she dismounts at the top of the dam and glances out toward the west, the dust cloud has almost reached the middle of the valley. “Damn…” The saddlebags come off the horse, and she forces herself not to show how heavy the bags are as she sets them down carefully, well back from the lake. She then loosens one set of buckles, easing the wax-impregnated and oiled leather bag containing the heavy powder out of the stiffer leather of one saddlebag. The other saddlebag remains closed. With a deep breath, she lifts the waxy leather container and walks out onto the flat stone bulwark that holds the iron hinges of the floodgates, finally setting her burden down with exaggerated care.

Creaaakkkkkk
…

The dark-haired woman studies the gates, trying to determine whether they have begun to bulge or separate. “How many have you got done?” She leans over the stone wall.

“Five completed, maybe another five to go.”

The officer looks at the water, lapping less than a cubit below the overflow spillway, then at the gates. Then she bends over the wall again. “Finish up the ones you're on, and mount up. Follow us up here.”

“Those beams are solid…”

“I know. I know.” The woman with the still-untarnished silver firebird on the collar of her green leather vest straightens up and looks at the leather bag resting on the stone by her feet.

With a deep breath, she bends.

“One should be enough…” She studies the dust cloud, and the ant-like horses that lead the more than a thousand renegade soldiers thrown out by the new duke.

Clickedy…click
…

Below, the five troopers scramble onto their mounts and guide the horses along the narrow path the rest of the squad had taken earlier.

As the blond woman leads the remainder of the squad upward and toward the top of the dam, the squad leader returns to her mount and extracts a thin coil of waxed rope from her normal saddlebags. She carries the rope back to the dam, where she studies the dark-green water behind the main floodgates.

In quick sure strokes, she cuts four equal lengths from the coil. Two she sets aside. One remaining section she inserts through a plug in the coated leather before tamping wax around the edges. The second section she ties to the neck of the bag. Trying not to hurry, she slowly lowers the bag into the water, paying the rope—around which the fuse is threaded—out slowly, until the bag rests four cubits down. She ignores the puzzled looks from the mounted troops in the defile to the north of the dam.

At last she ties the connecting rope to the nearest iron wheel, and threads the second rope through the wheel as well. After retrieving the coil and the other two sections of rope and setting them on a boulder beside where the blond woman now holds the reins to her mount, she stops.

“All of you—back up and around that corner.”

Not waiting to see if her orders are obeyed, she moves almost at a run to the dam, where she studies the valley. Should she wait? The effect would be greater. But what if…? She shakes her head and eases the striker from her belt.

Scrtcccc…click…hhsssttttt
…A long spark leaps from the striker to the loosely-threaded rope fuse, followed by a tongue of flame licking its way toward the water and the bag of powder suspended in the heavy green below.

“…devils…she carried
that
all the way from Kyphrien?”

“One white wizard…all that it would take to blow us all to hell…”

“…demons protect their own…”

She sprints off the dike as fast as she can, throwing herself into the saddle. For the first time ever that her squad has seen, her booted heels spur her mount.

Once behind the rocky ledge with the rest of the squad, she reins in and waits…and waits.

“Hell!”

She turns the horse, starting to edge back toward the dam.

CRUUMMPPP
…The blue-green water surges up perhaps three cubits above the floodgates.

“Is that all?…”

Creeeaakakkkkk…snnaaappp…SWUUUUUSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
…

As the gates buckle open, the spring's accumulated runoff gushes forth down the narrow gorge, gaining speed as it drops the nearly one kay toward the narrow valley floor.

“…gods have mercy…”

…wheee…eeehuunnn
…

“…easy…easy there…”

“…now…you see why you never cross her…”

The black-eyed woman, whose eyes are now darker than the black of her irises, nudges the horse forward to the stone wall, where she can watch the wall of water sweeping down on the unprepared rebels.

At least one Kyphran banner flutters on the high ground where the southwest road offers the only escape from the lake that the grassy valley has become.

The olive groves will suffer, but the autarch needs trained troops more than olives.