5.Death of Chaos
XXVII
East of Lavah, Sligo [Candar]
THE MAN IN the cyan sash looks at the drawings on the sheets before him. “How will this help us against the red demon? Or to reclaim our heritage in the Ohyde Valley?”
“Knowledge is always helpful, Ser Begnula.” The man in brown smiles and his eyes turn to the window, where the season's first snowflakes drift lazily by the glass. “I offer knowledge. You and your master can use that knowledge or not.”
“And who will you offer it to, if we do not? The red demon?”
“Like everyone, I must eat, and knowledge is my trade.” Sammel offers a shrug as he turns away from the window.
“A chaos wizard like one who serves the red demon could explode the powder with one firebolt.” Begnula licks his lips nervously. “For this, you expect golds?”
“If you keep the powder in the iron magazines and load the guns right from the magazines, nothing will happen. That is how the black folk have handled powder for centuries.”
“You are sure this will work?”
“How else has Recluce ruled the seas?” The man in brown nods.
“Still, the Duke could not afford...” Begnula's voice turns reluctant.
“I would suggest that your master talk to the envoy from Hamor, assuming you have not already. The Emperor would be more than interested in developing new weapons for his campaigns. ”
“And seeing them tested, no doubt, far from Hamor?”
“There is that. But you asked for a weapon to counter the chaos wizard. These will do that. You can even cast hollow shells filled with powder and use them. Or thinner shells filled with smaller lead pellets.”
“They are the demons' weapons.”
“That may be, but you are fighting a demon, you say.”
“You serve both chaos and order. How can that be?” asks Begnula suddenly.
“Knowledge serves no one. Knowledge rules both order and chaos.” Sammel smiles. “Whoever controls knowledge controls order and chaos. I offer your master knowledge. He may use it as he pleases.”
Begnula rolls the sheets into his dispatch case, then takes his purse and pulls three golds from it. He places the coins carefully on the edge of the table. “I trust...”
“As you see fit. Ser Begnula.”
Begnula looks at Sammel and adds another gold.
“Thank you. I am always happy to provide knowledge.”
The functionary of the Duke bows. “Good day, ser wizard.”
“Good day.”
Sammel crosses the room and opens the door.
Begnula bows again after he leaves the cottage.
The wizard smiles as the other man mounts and wipes his forehead before chucking the reins of the gray gelding. Then he closes the door.
Sammel walks over to the hearth, where he places another log upon the coals, and then another. He straightens and frowns, his eyes glazing over as if he listens to a distant conversation.
He takes the glass that had been upon the table and crosses the room, where he sets it on the floor in the corner. He purses his lips and stares. A fountain of unseen chaos flows from the glass, then ebbs, then flows...
Sammel concentrates once more, and the glass appears to vanish, but a wavering curtain of mist or heat appears in the corner.
With a faint smile, Sammel walks back to the hearth. After a time, he wipes his damp forehead and waits. Abruptly, he vanishes from sight, and the cottage appears empty, low flames from the coals in the hearth the only motion.
The faintest of scrapes whispers from beyond the closed front door.
. The door bursts open, but no one enters.
For a long moment, the door wavers in the wind, and the hearth coals flame up in the breeze that sweeps into the cottage. Whhhst! Whhhsttt! Two small rockets burst in the corner, sending up a sheet of flame.
Hhhsstt! Hssttt! The firebolts slash from the unseen figure that stands before the stones of the hearth, and two charred figures fall through the doorway.
The flames begin to rise in the corner, then twist and die amid the shards of glass.
The wind gusts through the open door, and the door bangs against the wall, then slams back against one of the bodies, then crashes against the wall again.
Sammel reappears before the hearth and wipes his forehead on his sleeve. Then he crosses the cottage and studies the two black-clad bodies. Both clutch stubby weapons that look like tubes atop rifle stocks. More standard blades lie tangled in burned trousers and legs.
The wizard lifts one tube weapon by the wooden stock and sets it on the table. Then he concentrates once more, and the bodies turn to white ashes, as do the blades and the remaining tube weapon. He turns toward the corner of the cottage, and the blackened wood and darkened rough plaster flake away, leaving the wall apparently untouched. Sammel looks at the blackened floor planks and a thin layer of ash appears over now - unburned wood.
With a deep breath, the white wizard closes the front door before he walks to the single closet in the cottage where he extracts a willow broom. He begins to sweep all the ashes toward the hearth.
“Mere black iron will not prevail against knowledge...” He shakes his head, but he looks first at the weapon on the table and then toward the east, and he frowns.
After he finishes sweeping, he replaces the broom, then draws back the cloth covering the bookcase and looks for a time at the volumes. He reaches out to touch one, then draws back his hand. “To come to this, where each touch shortens your life, dear volumes...”