Chaos Balance
CXLVII
NYLAN'S EYES OPENED slowly, but he saw nothing, and he closed them against the knives that stabbed through them. He lay silently for a time, smelling fire and smoke and death and destruction, odors that knifed through his nostrils.
“Where is she?” the engineer finally asked, except that he knew. Ayrlyn was standing outside the tent, looking southward at what had once been fields, except that she saw not with her eyes.
How did he know? He shivered.
The link, the link he had opened to the forest... and a sense of welcome, well-being, rushed through him, twining with the chaos of destruction, and the dull knives of death and devastation-life and death, order and chaos, except they were not parallel, not exactly, insisted some forgotten engineer's corner of his mind.
He sat up, ignoring the pain, the stiffness. After a moment, he tottered upright, out of the tent into the sulfurous air that swirled and swept up the hillside. Although he could not see, what he could sense was more than enough. Churned and blistered earth and rock, the chaos of nearly endless death, and the smells. The screams of men and mages churned under a tidal wave of earth and rock and the shrieks of innocent mounts trapped and buried, never to tread the grasslands again.
What he could sense was indeed more than enough. His head and shoulders bent under that unseen weight, and he would have fallen without a strong arm, and the strong soul of the woman who helped him, and without the sense of balance provided by the distant forest-a Naclos that was already . .. different. . . more aware.
He swallowed and straightened slowly.
“You can't see, either, can you?” Ayrlyn asked.
“No. I can sense things. You?”
Yes. You . . . the forest...
“Agents of change.”
Agents of balance . . . She nodded, and he could sense the nod he could not see.
Another figure joined them in the morning that still reeked of the slaughter two days earlier. “You two . . . you best not be . . .” Sylenia shook her head. “You raved about going to the forest again. You cannot see.”
“We have to,” explained Ayrlyn.
“Then we will go with you.”
“We?” asked Nylan.
“Tonsar will come. We have talked. It is better. He could not follow any of the lords of Lornth now, except ser Gethen, and ser Gethen, he is old.”
“Fornal?” asked Nylan, hoping in a way that what he recalled of Fornal's charge had not been so.
“He... he perished amid the fires and thunderbolts.” Sylenia shrugged and glanced around. “That, too, is better. He would not accept what will be.”
Nylan took a deep breath. “Weryl?”
“He slept between you. Otherwise he cried, and wisps of fire or light, they surrounded him. He sleeps now. He is an angel, like you, so young as he may be.” Sylenia shook her head once more and turned back toward the tent, clearly erected over where they had fallen.
Are we so fearsome we couldn't be moved?
Apparently.
Nylan chuckled, but only momentarily. His body hurt too much to continue. “No laughing matter.” He paused. “Weryl?”
“What else would you expect? He sensed the notes early; he felt the forest.”
Nylan took a deep breath, then slowly walked back into the tent. Every muscle hurt. As Sylenia had said, their son-for he was Ayrlyn's as much as Istril's-slept. But Nylan could sense the intertwining of order and chaos, the inherent balance.
He turned to Ayrlyn.
“He needs the forest, and so do we.”
Nylan nodded, then eased away from the sleeping figure and back out into the bitter open air.
“Nylan?” Ayrlyn paused. “Why was it so much greater than before? Just because you pulled a core tap?”
“Just because?” he asked wryly. “Anyway, it wasn't quite that deep. It just felt that deep. There used to be a natural balance between order and chaos-almost between the crustal layers and the magma beneath. Then the Rats came along and laid an artificial layer of order over another layer of chaos when they planoformed Candar-or the section where the forest was. I don't know if that was on purpose or just the result. Whatever the reason, the old white mages had used the artificial imbalance between those top two layers as a power source-like an electric current, if you will. That was on a comparatively low level in the past. I think,” the engineer added hastily, looking around with sightless eyes, as he sensed someone else approaching, "when I used the weapons laser to destroy the Cyadoran forces and Gallosian forces, it was like a wake-up call-or the equivalent. Or maybe the forest- I'm still not sure if it's really conscious in the same way we are-blindly copied the impact.
“The barriers that held back the Accursed Forest in Cyador, except it's Naclos now-or again-were old, ancient technology. Probably they shouldn't have lasted as long as they did, but the way I twisted the weapons laser broke the field, and the forest began to try to regain its own territory.”
“And the Cyadorans didn't have the technology anymore?”
“It's not just technology.” Nylan coughed, nearly retching before he finally said, “I don't know. I don't think it was any one thing, but everything sort of reinforced everything else. And then when I went down to the crustal levels, that acted like a power reinforcement for the forest.”
“It's more aware now,” she pointed out. Much more aware.
“I know.”
An entourage on horseback approached, and the two turned, still sightless. Nylan half-wondered if he would ever see again properly.
“You have delivered Lornth.” Gethen's voice was flat. “Some would question the price.”
“Do you, ser?” asked Nylan mildly.
“No.” A sigh followed. “High as it was and will be.”
“Cyador is no more, is it?” asked Zeldyan. Nesslek rode in the seat behind her, half-dozing.
“Some of it is still there,” Nylan said. “The part that wasn't built on the Great Forest. Some of the western towns and cities are mostly there. Ruins probably. The destruction is ... I think it's worse where there were cities and towns. . . .”
“None of the white armsmen, not a one, survived. Nor did the white mages.” Zeldyan's words were low. “Were you sent to destroy all the white mages? No matter what the cost to Candar?”
“No. We were not sent to destroy anyone,” Nylan answered.
“That does not matter,” said Zeldyan. “In that, Fornal was right. You have changed Lornth, and all of Candar. You have won the battle, but my brother and regent was lost. You have saved my son's birthright, yet that right is not what it once was. You have raised dark forces, and shown in doing so that an outlander or even a peasant can bring down the mighty.”
“You have brought down the mightiest empire in Candar,” added Gethen, “and while none should fault you, I have lost both my sons.” His head bowed.
Nylan understood where the regent's words had to lead, but he waited. Ayrlyn squeezed his hand.
“Lornth would not be grateful if we did not thank you for deliverance,” said Zeldyan. “Yet no regent, nor my son, will rest easy should you stay in Lornth. Against your powers, I cannot prevail. Yet I must insist, though it mean my death, that when you are well . . . when you are well . . . you leave Lornth.”
“We will supply all that you wish to ease that journey,” added Gethen. “And some golds for your future needs. Though I wonder whether you should need such.”
Another silence settled, and the south wind raised the odor of sulfur and death again.
“We will need some supplies, and a little time to recover.” For the land to recover enough to let us travel. . .
“It's better that way,” added Ayrlyn. What she said was absolutely true, and misleading, but the balance was sufficient.
“You cannot see. Will you be able soon to manage?” asked Zeldyan, anger, confusion, and compassion mixed in her voice.
“We managed this.” Nylan's arm gestured toward the smoke- and dust-filled skies, across the charred grasslands. “We'll manage. Naclos . . . the Great Forest will take us in. And there will be a place for those who prefer balance to force.” Like us.
Ayrlyn's hand took his, and they stood, the unseen distant forest of Naclos behind them, with them, with the sense of balance that infused them-and Weryl-the balance that they needed, the balance that Sylenia and Tonsar, and others would come to accept and appreciate.
Sightless eyes turned south; the two angels stood, heads unbowed.
After a moment, both regents inclined their heads.
“Better you leave when you are ready,” said Gethen. “Few will remember the good you did, and many the evil. Though the good be far greater, it has cost us dearly,”
“It always does,” said Nylan quietly.
Always, affirmed Ayrlyn..
“May you always be kind to Lornth,” Zeldyan finally said.
“So long as Lornth is kind to Naclos,” Ayrlyn answered.
The regents rode silently from the tent and the angels.
“Where does it end?” Nylan finally asked.
“Never. The balance doesn't.”
“You're awfully philosophical.”
“No. Practical.”
Arms linked, unseeing, but with sure steps, they went to greet the waking Weryl. Behind them, thin lines of white and black smoke swirled into plumes of gray. Before them- across the changed lands-waited the Great Forest . . . and the Balance.
And the Balance.
L. E. Modesitt, Jr., lives in Cedar City, Utah.
TOR BOOKS BY L. E. MODESITT, JR.
THE SAGA OF RECLUCE
1 The Magic of Recluce
2 The Towers of the Sunset
3 The Magic Engineer
4 The Order War
5 The Death of Chaos
6 Fall of Angels
7 The Chaos Balance
8 The White Order
9 Colors of Chaos
10 Magi'i of Cyandor
11 Scion of Cyandor
THE SPELLSONG CYCLE
The Soprano Sorceress
The Spellsong War
Darksong Rising
THE ECOLITAN MATTER
The Ecologic Envoy
The Ecolitan Operation
The Ecologic Secession
The Ecolitan Enigma
THE FOREVER HERO
Dawn for a Distant Earth
The Silent Warrior
In Endless Twilight
Of Tangible Ghosts
The Ghost of the Revelator
The Timegod
Timediver's Dawn
The Hammer of Darkness
The Parafaith War
Adiamante
The Green Progression (with Bruce Scott Levinson)
“Fascinating! A big, exciting novel of the battle between good and evil, and the path between.”
-Gordon R. Dickson on The Magic of Recluce
“This is a very special fantasy, original ... in its slow and thoughtful use of familiar fantastic elements and its skillful development of character.”
-Asimov's SF Magazine on The Magic of Recluce
“I could not put it down. This is an outstanding fantasy tale.”
-Andre Norton on The Towers of Sunset
“This is a writer who cares about his characters and his world. This is disciplined fantasy, not fluff. L. E. Modesitt, Jr., is uncompromising when it comes to the effects of magic, both on the natural world and on the human heart. There are no cheap solutions to the problems of Reluce. Because of that, it is a world worth returning to.”
-Megan Lindholm on The Magic Engineer
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-Robert J. Sawyer on The Order War