5.Death of Chaos
LXXXI
I PICKED UP the cedar length from the back of the bench, glancing across at the drawing board where Wegel was sweating over the chair designs for Antona. He was beginning to discover the difference between creating what was easy and creating what was necessary.
I looked at the roughed-out figure. A face existed somewhere inside the old cedar, but I hadn't found it yet. So I sat on the stool and trimmed away a bit more of the wood, bringing out more of the general shape of the face.
Grrrrurrr... rrrrr... Setting the cedar down, I stood. Thin shiverings of... something... seemed to echo through the ground and stones beneath Kyphros, almost as if ripples of chaos ran through the ground. Ripples of chaos? From where?
I set down the knife beside the cedar and steadied myself with a hand on the edge of the workbench.
“M-m-master L-L-Lerris...”
“I'm all right. Just a bit hot.” I walked slowly out of the shop and then back through the empty kitchen to the rear porch where I plopped down onto the bench.
I tried to let my thoughts follow those waves of chaos, focused chaos, back through the ground, but I lost them beyond Kyphrien, somewhere short of the Little Easthorns.
Somewhere short of the Little Easthorns? Not bad for someone who couldn't tell what was in the upper air within a few kays. Then again, I wasn't an air wizard, and it appeared as though I might indeed be an earth wizard of sorts.
Braaawkkk... brawwkkk...
“Shoo!”
The chicken brawwkkked, but just kept scratching at the ground.
An earth wizard who couldn't even shoo away a chicken, I decided. I shivered as I recalled the power of chaos in the last tremor I had sensed. Chaos coming from the Easthorns, and seemingly moving westward.
It had to be linked somehow to Hamor. Hamor was using the mechanical order and the Balance. Logically, it made no sense that chaos was involved, and my father would have told me so. But chaos seemed always to hover around violence and conquest, and Hamor was certainly involved in that. And besides, it felt as if Hamor were involved. And Krystal had told me to trust my feelings. Even the autarch had.
I wiped my forehead, glancing toward the west and the Westhorns I could not see, but only sense vaguely. The sun, reddish in the late afternoon, hung over the top of the hill.
Krystal and Kasee had planned the defense of Kyphros on the assumption that Leithrrse would use the Hamorian fleet to reduce Ruzor. But by now Leithrrse had to know about that defense. If he learned about it, wouldn't he change his plans? I knew I would.
Were I in Leithrrse's shoes, I'd use the wizards' roads through the Little Easthorns and come down through Tellura and Meltosia. Whether Leithrrse knew that most of the northern outliers had been wiped out in the battle for the brimstone spring was another question, but I doubted that the outliers at full strength could have stopped the Hamorians and their rifle-armed troops. Kasee's troops were loo few and too spread.
Yet the chaos hadn't come from the Little Easthorns, but beyond, farther to the east. Also, I doubted that the wizards' roads were passable farther east. Otherwise, Antonin would have used them.
I swallowed. Was someone-Leithrrse?-using chaos to restore all the old roads that the white wizards had used to dominate ancient Candar? Or could they just march over the blocked parts? Then Hamor could move armies quickly down the center of Candar, or by sea.
The wizards' road left Tellura and Meltosia open to the Hamorian troops... I frowned. The road also left Gallos open, and wouldn't Leithrrse take Gallos first? But why? He could use Ruzor to reinforce a conquered Kyphros and outflank the Prefect on both sides. Certis would fall, or had it already? There was so much I didn't know. Still, once the Hamorians had Kyphrien, they could use the river and the river road as a highway right into Ruzor.
The wizards' roads were one of the tools that the ancient white wizards had used 'to bring most of Candar under their rule. So far, the Hamorians hadn't missed a trick. Why would they now?
Had Krystal or Kasee thought about that? I took a deep breath. Maybe I was going off on feelings I couldn't even trust.
Another rippling shiver of chaos seemed to echo from the . rocks below. That I wasn't imagining.
I could run off, or I could take a little time and go to Ruzor. Besides, I wanted to see Krystal, especially before I went off investigating more chaos and the person-or people-who wielded it. I also wanted to think more about it, and to talk to Krystal. Was it all in my imagination? If it weren't, though, Kyphros was facing an even bigger problem.
I stood up and looked toward the coming sunset.
“Rissa!”
One way or another I couldn't do anything to help Krystal by staying in Kyphrien, and it would be at least several eight-days before Faslik had anywhere near enough cherry for Antona's dining set and chairs.
“Rissa!”
I walked back to the kitchen to start getting ready for the morning's trip.