5.Death of Chaos
LXXVII
KRYSTAL DIDN'T RETURN until well after dark, and we sat alone on the back porch, waiting for the evening breezes to cool the house and the bedroom, looking at the clear and distant stars, and talking.
“I don't know. I don't like giving things to people,” I said slowly, “but somehow just saying that it's bad luck or their fault doesn't solve things. Neither does handing out a few coppers to make me feel better.”
“That's life,” Krystal said, leaning back in the chair. “That sounds... wrong. I mean... some people make bad decisions or have bad luck, and they die or get hurt. Magisters like Lennett or Talryp want to make it so cold. If you make a mistake, you pay. If you say that every woman must pay for the stupid things she did...”
“That's just it. It balances, but is it fair? Take Guysee-her consort was hurt trying to help someone. Was it a bad decision for him to try to help? Talryn would say it was. No one paid him for that, and she and their children paid for his decision. I've been lucky. Kasee paid me for helping the Finest, but no one paid Shervan or Pendril-at least not much beyond a gold or two.”
“Two golds,” said Krystal. “That's the death payment for the outliers.”
“Two golds.” I shook my head. “I probably owe my life to a dozen people, maybe more, who are dead. If I paid their families even that, I couldn't keep a roof over our heads.” My guts tightened at the statement. “Well... I couldn't keep more than the roof of a cot over our heads.”
“You're also keeping a roof over the heads of Rissa and Wegel and me.”
“I like you under my roof, but you don't exactly need my help-”
She squeezed my hand.
“-and, I don't know, but the Balance doesn't really care about people, or about whether children go hungry.”
“That was what got Tamra in trouble,” pointed out Krystal. “She still had trouble with the lack of justice in the Balance. So do you, or you wouldn't be turning a henhouse into a cot.”
“Wegel's doing the work.”
“You're buying the materials and paying him.”
“That bothers me, too, in a way.”
“Nothing says you can't work on it.” She laughed, and I hugged her, because she was right, and we held each other in the quiet and the light breeze for a time.
“I worry, too, you know.” Her voice was low, barely audible above the rising whisper of the strengthening breeze. “You don't carry a blade every day.”
I swallowed. Here I was worrying about being too charitable or not charitable enough, and Krystal carried forged death at her hip just about every waking moment. “It bothers you.”
“Sometimes. Kasee's pretty good, and most of the time we do more good than harm.” She paused. “But I have to ask why so often everything has to be decided by force. The one-god followers talk about goodness. I haven't seen much goodness that wasn't backed with steel.”
“Kasee's a good ruler, as rulers go, but Hamor doesn't seem to care about that.”
“Their leaders are very shrewd. They're a lot more experienced than we are.” She shook her head. “They've already got the support of most people in Freetown and Montgren. Certis probably won't last long-half the people hate the Viscount, almost as badly as the Gallosians hate their Prefect. With the Hamorians' new weapons, who can stand up to them in battle? We've barely been able to purchase a score of those new rifles, and not many of the cartridges-but they're sending every foot soldier to Candar with one.”
“You make it sound impossible.”
“Well, dear man, just how do we stop an empire? And when I ask that, it bothers me, because it sounds like I'm asking you to go out and be a hero, and I don't want you to.”
“Why not?”
“Because... heroes really aren't very nice people, and I'm afraid that you'll change.”
“Maybe that's why Justen avoids things,” I said. “He was a hero once, maybe more than once, and he never wants to do it again. That was a long time ago, and they didn't have machines like Hamor does. He destroyed Fairhaven, and everything else collapsed.” I laughed. “If the Hamorians had any idea.of what he'd done, I don't think that they'd ever let him anywhere close to their capital or their emperor. Not that he'd go. Anyway, the machines change everything.”
“I wonder,” mused Krystal. “Do they? Really? You keep talking about the boiling chaos building beneath Candar. That sounds to me like something's upset the Balance.”
“It has. My father thinks that it's mostly Hamor.”
“Don't order and chaos have to balance? Won't it strike back at the Empire?”
“How? Hamor is a third of a globe away, and the chaos is here.” I frowned. Krystal had something, something so obvious that I couldn't quite figure it out.
“I don't know. You're the order mage. I'm just a professional soldier.”
“Just? Hardly.” I ruffled her short hair.
“You're the one who bought me my first blade.”
“Because you needed it.”
“Oh, Lerris...”
“We can't solve all the world's problems tonight. And you're leaving tomorrow.”
“You could come to Ruzor.”
“What would I do, besides get in your way?”
“You never get in my way. Are you worried about losing the crafting business?”
“A little-except I don't seem to have much left.” And I didn't. Commissions seemed to have vanished.
“What about the desk?”
“We're just about through with it.” I shrugged. “After that...”
“Then you could come-you could bring tools, couldn't you?”
“I could...”
“You don't sound like you want to.” Krystal's voice carried a slight edge.
“It's not that, not exactly. Going to Ruzor doesn't feel quite right, but I don't know why, and it bothers me because I don't. I don't like your being there, either.” I laughed. “Then, I don't like your being away so much, anyway.”
“You have to trust your feelings,” she said slowly. “But you could visit, couldn't you?”
“I'd at least have to finish the henhouse.”
She laughed. So did I, and we left the cooling winds and the cold stars for a warmer bedroom.