The Death of Chaos

5.Death of Chaos

 

 

 

 

 

LVII

 

 

 

 

JUSTEN MOANED IN his sleep, then bolted upright, his blanket dropping away. Tamra screamed.

 

A faint groaning in the ground echoed in their ears, as if from an impossibly distant source.

 

“Justen!”

 

“Darkness... darkness...” muttered the older mage.

 

“What... ?” gasped Tamra.

 

“Lerris, the idiot.” Justen struggled out of his bedroll and eased a log into the coals. He rubbed his forehead.

 

Tamra rubbed her own forehead. “My head hurts. Worse than after chasing storms.”

 

“So does mine.” Justen offered her his water bottle.

 

She drank, then looked at the fire, at the cold stars overhead, and at last toward the northwest and toward distant Jellico.

 

Grrrrurrrrr...

 

They both winced.

 

“What about Lerris?” Tamra handed the water bottle back to the gray wizard.

 

“I didn't think he was... this far... he didn't tell me everything.”

 

Tamra looked at Justen. “That's because you didn't tell him everything. You hide too much. You didn't trust Lerris fully, and you trust me even less. You sneak around in the shadows cast by your own past.” She massaged her forehead again. “Darkness, my head hurts.” She glared at Justen. “It hurts even to try and sense what's out in the darkness. I'd hate to try to read the weather now.”

 

“There's no weather underground.”

 

The log on the coals burst into flame. “Stop being obscure. That's just another form of distrust.”

 

“I suppose so.”

 

“I know so,” snapped the redhead. “Just because you hide things doesn't mean they stay hidden. So tell me what Lerris is doing, and why it's disrupting order and chaos all across Candar. It's not in the air. I could tell if it were.”

 

“He's challenging the Balance, and he's doing it deep within the earth. I didn't know he was an earth wizard.”

 

“An earth wizard? There are earth wizards?”

 

“There haven't been before, not full ones, not any I heard of,” admitted Justen. “But that's what he's doing.”

 

“You aren't an earth wizard?”

 

“I can do a little there, like Lerris can do a little with the winds, but the forest and living things, and metals, are what I know best.”

 

“You know metals and aren't an earth wizard?”

 

“I was a smith once, and metals above the earth are easier. With... help... I can do... some things below the earth.”

 

“You're not telling me everything. Again!” Tamra massaged her forehead. “Everything you say leads to more questions.”

 

Grrrrurrrrr...

 

With the distant deep rumbling, Justen pursed his lips.

 

“So am I an air wizard? Or can I just sense things in the air like you can in the earth?” Tamra took a step back from the fire.

 

“You're an air wizard, but how strong I don't know.” Justen shrugged, sadly. “No one seems to be able to tell until things like this happen. Some wizards never really find out.”

 

“You're being obscure again, and I don't like it.”

 

“All wizards have to go through a personal trial-if they want to be full wizards using order. You will, too-probably not for a while yet, though. That's what's happening to Lerris.”

 

“What will happen to him?”

 

“If he survives, he'll be on the way to full control of his abilities, but he'll probably be pretty beaten up.”

 

“Pretty beaten up? He almost died already. What do you expect of him? What do you expect of me!” She started to glare again, then held her forehead. “Men! Idiots!”

 

“I don't expect anything,” growled Justen. “You seem to think that, because you can see the storms, call up a breeze, or move a cloud or two around, you're a full wizard. It doesn't work that way.”

 

“How does it work? What does this have to do with the Balance? Tell me, and don't be so demon-damned obscure.”

 

“All wizardry involves the Balance.” Justen pursed his lips and looked at the fire.

 

“And?”

 

“The greater the use of either order or chaos, the more likely a wizard will upset the Balance. When that happens, he has to right it, especially in himself. If not...” Justen shook his head.

 

“Why will it be a while before I face this... whatever it is? I'm older than Lerris.”

 

“Because you're an air wizard, you might not. My brother Gunnar never did. Creslin lost his sight, but he was older, I think.”

 

“You think? Don't you know?”

 

Justen looked back at the fire.

 

“Don't you know?” Tamra massaged her forehead again.

 

“No. I'm sort of a jack - of - all - trades wizard. I'm not an air wizard.”

 

Lit by the flickering red of the fire and by the cold light of the stars, neither mage looked at the other, but far beneath Candar the ground rumbled... and rumbled.

 

 

 

 

 

L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s books