5.Death of Chaos
LXXXII
GAIRLOCH ALMOST PRANCED as I saddled him and strapped my gear in place. I took my staff and a few tools, including a small saw.
When I walked Gairloch out into the yard, I didn't see Guy-see, but Jydee and Myrla sat on the crude bench outside their cot. I had to admit that they kept it clean-even the jakes that Wegel had built, although he'd grumbled about where I'd insisted it be. I wasn't about to have it too close to the house, even if the water were piped from the hillside spring.
Jydee gave me the smallest of waves as I led Gairloch over to the house, where I had left the bag of provisions by the kitchen step. Wegel stood outside the shop door, broom in hand. I didn't even have to ask him to keep the shop clean anymore, and I'd left him with the responsibility for another travel chest and the design for the dining set, plus whatever he could provide to Jahunt. I'd also suggested he think about a window for his room. It probably wasn't enough, but it was all I could think of, and I didn't want to commit us to making too much when no one except Antona was buying.
“G-g-good l-l-luck, s-s-ser.”
“Thank you, Wegel. I'm not sure luck is really the answer. I probably won't be back in less than an eight-day, and it could be longer, much longer.” After strapping the provisions bag behind the saddle, I glanced at Rissa. “You have enough to keep things going?”
“Now that we have chickens, and eggs, if I can't keep this place going for two seasons on ten golds, you should have me hung, Master Lerris.” She gave me a smile. “Some goats or a cow, and I could make my own cheese.”
I shrugged. “How much for some she-goats?”
“He's worried, boy.” Rissa looked at Wegel. “When a crafter doesn't fight against his housekeeper spending hard-earned coins, he's worried.”
“You do have a good sense of when to ask me.”
“And I'd not be the woman I am if I didn't.”
“How much?”
“She-goats are cheap, and the cheese is the rank stuff.”
I got the message, dismounted, and tied Gairloch to the post outside the shop. In the end, I gave her ten more golds to see if she could find someone who could spare a heifer that could become a milk cow. Knowing Rissa, I suspected she could. Somehow, things kept getting more complicated. The two girls pretty much watched the chickens and gathered the eggs for Rissa, and Guysee helped clean the house, and she'd even started mucking the mare's stall. I'd never asked her, but she felt better doing it, and it certainly had left Wegel more time for helping me.
I finally managed to get back on Gairloch.
“You be careful, Master Lerris,” Rissa warned.
“I'll try.” I wasn't that confident about my success in being careful, not the way things seemed to be headed in and around Kyphros, nor with the ideas I needed to talk over with Krystal and perhaps the autarch.
“Try,” snorted Rissa. “That was what Faras said.”
I didn't answer, since it was the first time she'd mentioned the name. I wondered if Faras had been her consort, the one murdered by bandits. Instead, I smiled and waved, guiding Gairloch across the yard and toward the road.
Like all my recent trips in Kyphros, I began by riding into Kyphrien. The marketplace was perhaps half-full, less noisy than usual.
“... and I said to her, Hezira, how could you expect to keep that high house and all those gowns? She only had her face and a narrow waist and smooth skin, and all of that goes when you eat rich foods and have children. So, I said, Hezira, best you get that figure back, or you'll be on your back at the Green Isles working for Madame Antona...”
“... a lady Antona is now...”
“... such a lady, with a mind like a blade...”
“... best sweet breads in Kyphrien...”
“... all she sees is a ready smile and blue eyes... can you expect of a girl... who will bring in the coppers for the bread... and coppers be getting hard to find these days...”
“... spices... preservatives for your larders... work even in the heat of summer... spices... preservatives...”
“... old bread, hard bread, but good bread! Half copper a loaf! Just a half copper!...”
“Steel! Good steel blades...”
“.... said the sundevils hold Jellico now... won't be long afore they're looking this way, autarch and her wizards or not...”
“... mighty wizards they are, though...”
“... 'gainst cold steel devices?”
I didn't feel like a mighty wizard, and what I did hear in the marketplace didn't cheer me that much, nor did the sight of the autarch's palace on the hill with the windows I knew were dark. At least, Liessa hadn't shuttered them.
The gate to Ruzor was the south gate, really the southeast gate, that led to the river road. A boat would probably have been faster, at least to Felsa, and the cataracts there, but the Phroan River was too shallow for most of the way for larger boats or barges broad enough to carry cargoes-or mountain ponies. So how would I have gotten back without paying a fortune?
Most of the river road was metaled, but narrow, with the width of the paving stones barely enough for two wagons to pass side by side. Then, except in the winter, the roads in Kyphros were seldom muddy.
Dust was another question. I tried to keep Gairloch on the stones, but even in the center of the road, dust rose with each step, and the fine red powder hung in the air and clung to everything.
Even before we reached the first bridge, less than twenty kays along the road, where the Mildr joins the Phroan River, the old square from a work shirt that I used for a handkerchief was more red mud than the clean gray cloth I had put in my belt that morning.
Red mud streaked my cheeks, the result of dust and sweat. Even though I washed hands and face, and my kerchief, what seemed every few kays, my reddish muddy sweat clung everywhere, even though we saw almost no one on the road, save for an occasional farm wagon, usually empty, headed away from Kyphrien. Only the olive groves seemed unchanged, with their leaves greened out, but olives seemed to outlast everyone.
Gairloch snorted and snuffled, but carried me southward.
The first night found me at a waystation below a town called Hipriver. From what I could tell, few had visited the waystation recently. There were only a scattering of tracks in the dust on the road, and since we hadn't had any rain in more than a handful of eight-days, the weather hadn't destroyed the evidence of travelers. More likely, there were few indeed in recent days.
Sometimes, fear of violence is more deadly than the violence itself.
After long, steady riding, I reached Felsa around noon on the fourth day. Felsa sits on an arrow-shaped point of hard rock where the Phroan River is joined by the little Sturbal River. Right below Felsa the Phroan plunges through the Gateway Gorge and down onto the delta plains.
Although Felsa's walls are not that high, they don't have to be, not to defend against attacks from the water, since the cliffs are almost twenty cubits high and made of sheer, but crumbling, rock. Supposedly, parts of the walls have to be moved and rebuilt every few years, and the town is said to be nearly two hundred cubits narrower today than when it was ruled from Fenard.
The north walls, guarding the road from Kyphrien, were higher and thicker, but they wouldn't stop an army. Then, in more than ten centuries no one had marched an army downriver. That wouldn't stop Leithrrse, though.
A single guard nodded as I rode Gairloch through gates that seemed rusted open.
The market, like the one in Kyphrien, was more than half deserted. Unlike Kyphrien, there was little chatter, just a few murmurs here and there. After stopping in the shade of the public fountain and rinsing my face, I took Gairloch to the watering trough. Then I remounted Gairloch and took the east gate out over the bridge.
From Felsa, there are two roads to Ruzor-the mountain road, which winds along the north side of the gorge and then the high cliffs, and the water road, which circles the gorge on the south and then follows the twists of the river on the river plain where a strip of fruit orchards separates the river from the grasslands that stretch west and south, getting drier and higher each kay from the river.
I decided to follow the general rule, even though I had never traveled either road before. Since it was summer, I took the mountain road, a winding strip of paving stones barely wide enough for a single wagon except for a scattering of turnouts.
Despite the clear sky, mist rose out of the gorge from where the river was threshed by the rocks, seeping up almost like fog. It shrouded parts of the road-a welcome relief from the heat I had encountered all the way from Kyphrien. Kyphrien is actually cooler than Felsa or the grasslands, something I had heard. Finding it out in person was a dubious pleasure.
Once I left the gorge behind, the mist vanished. The sun continued to beat down, and the dust rose, but the air was so dry that the dampness from the mist left my clothes before the dust could even reach me.
Because the High Desert rises right off the cliffs on the east side of the river below the Gateway Gorge, the road got hot- and hotter, and I went through the water in both bottles before long. There was only one waystop that whole afternoon and evening, and to get water there, I had to use a bucket and a rope that must have been nearly fifty cubits long-twice, once for me and once for Gairloch. And I had to orderspell both buckets' worth.
I finally stopped in the second waystop, barely before full night. My legs ached, and Gairloch was plodding. He drank two buckets of water, but I didn't let him gulp them down all at once.
The next morning we set out again, finally reaching the outskirts of Ruzor around mid-afternoon.
Ruzor sits on the east side of the river, a city seemingly backed against the cliffs that contain the High Desert and keep its sands and waterless rocky hills from spilling into the Southern Ocean. The road wound down from the cliffs onto a lower plateau, fortified by recently repaired and extended stone walls. A small section of the city was lower still, barely above the waters of the bay.
The upper gates had a pair of guards, who only nodded at me. What harm could a single dusty traveler on a pony do? From there I found the main square and asked an off-duty trooper where the Finest were quartered. “The Finest?” I nodded.
“The green devils. Ah, you want the green devils and their commander. The demons help you, fellow. Still, I'd not gainsay a man a choice of his death. Aye, and death it will be when the sundevils bring their iron ships and death cannons to the bay and send their thundershells into poor Ruzor.”
“The Finest?” I prompted.
“The east road, by Haras's place-the Golden Cup-stay on it until it nears the seawalls and look for the iron gate and the mean-looking women with their blades. Yes, mean-looking, and if you tarry too long, I'll be behind you, little as I like it, for I'm as much a fool as ye.” He laughed, loudly. “For I'm as much a fool as ye.”
“I thank you.”
“Don't be a-thanking me, fellow.” He bowed, with an exaggerated sense of care, then winked before straightening.
With a nod to the trooper, I turned Gairloch toward the sign of the Golden Cup, trying not to frown. Was Ruzor as doomed as the trooper thought?
I tried to extend my senses in and around the city, but found no chaos, no disruption-more a sense of calm, or peace, bolstered by the order of the reinforced walls and the discipline of the Finest.
I couldn't help frowning as I rode Gairloch eastward toward the seawall, noting little of the laughter and chatter common to the towns and cities of Kyphros.
“... way for the cart...”
“... sea salt, fine sea salt...”
“... way for the cart...”
I doubt I could have missed either the iron gate or the heavy gray stone walls of the barracks, or the banner of the autarch flying from the building farther up the hillside from those barracks.
At the gate was a single broad-faced and dark-haired guard. I dismounted and walked up to him, leading Gairloch. He didn't acknowledge that I was standing there, and I'd never seen him. He looked right through me, as if I didn't exist. While I might have been dusty, I was certainly there.
“My name is Lerris, and I'm here to see the commander.”
“No one sees the commander without a pass.”
I nodded. “Who gives out the passes?”
“The commander or the district commander.”
“I suppose the district commander is Yelena.”
“Leader Yelena to you.”
I decided I hadn't learned enough patience, because I wanted to pick up my staff and thrash the idiot. I didn't. Instead, I asked politely-at least I thought it was politely-“Where might I find Leader Yelena?”
“You need the permission of Subofficer Thrilek.”
I wiped my forehead. Why did these sorts of things happen to me? “And where do I find Subofficer Thrilek?”
“Serjeant Hissek might know.”
“All right. Where is he?”
“He's in the main hall.”
I started forward.
“You can't go in there without a pass.”
“Look. The commander happens to my consort, and I've fought in more battles than you've clearly seen. I'd really appreciate seeing someone like Yelena.”
“I don't know you, and you're not going in.”
“Could you call someone?”
“I can't do that. I'd have to leave my post.”
“To call someone?”
“I'm not yelling just because you say so. You're just some tradesman, anyway.”
“All right.” I stepped back and pulled the staff out of the lanceholder. “Do you know what this is?”
“It's a long piece of wood.”
I shook my head. “It's a staff. It's the third one I've had since I came to Kyphros. I broke the first one against a white wizard. The second one got burned to a cinder against another white wizard.” I tried smiling. “I'm not a tradesman. My name is Lerris, and I'm the commander's consort.”
“I don't care what it is or who you say you are. You're not going into the barracks without a pass.”
I stepped forward, and he reached for his blade.
I saw red-or white-or something, but the staff cracked him across the wrist hard enough that he dropped the blade. He was dumb enough to reach for a knife, and I knocked that away.
“Help! Murder!”
The man could bellow, and suddenly there were three other young troopers with blades, and they didn't even ask what I wanted, and I was too busy defending myself to explain, and it seemed like whenever I knocked one down, there were two others trying to hack at me. So I ended up with my back to the wall, knocking around troopers I didn't even know.
“HALT!”
I recognized the voice, and so did most of the troopers except the one who decided that when I stopped defending myself, he'd gain some glory by slashing me up. Except I'd gotten a little more cautious, but I still wasn't quite expecting it. So I had to hit him harder, and I could hear the bone crack.
“Halt!” snapped Yelena again. Two other officers stood with her, but I didn't recognize either.
“Ser!” screeched the guard who had started the whole thing. “That man attacked me.”
“Shut up, trooper!” She turned to me. “How did you get in this mess, Master Lerris?”
I lowered the staff and shrugged. “Well... I was tired and trying to find Krystal-or you-but apparently I needed a pass to see either of you, and this fellow wouldn't let me see anyone who could give me a pass. He also wouldn't call anyone who might help. I've been on the road almost six days, and I was a little hasty and tried to walk in. He pulled his blade and tried to hack me apart. I tried not to kill anyone, but it was getting pretty tense.”
Yelena smiled. It wasn't exactly a pleasant smile, but I smiled back. She looked at the dozen or so guards. “You are all idiots. You're also lucky you aren't dead. Might I have the pleasure of introducing you to Master Lerris. In addition to being probably the best woodcrafter in Kyphros, he is also the gray wizard who defeated the Hydlenese white wizard and who killed somewhere in the neighborhood of ten squads of Hydlenese troopers by himself.” She nodded. “All by himself.”
“But he didn't have a pass,” protested the first trooper. The others looked at him as if he were crazy.
“Did he tell you who he was?”
“He said he was the commander's consort, Lerris.”
Yelena shook her head and turned to the subofficer beside her. “Thrilek, is this man yours?”
“Yes, ser.” Thrilek was sweating.
“Good. I'd like to see you both in my office after I escort Master Lerris to the commander. Did I mention that she is his consort?” She paused. “By the way, I seemed to notice that Lerris was holding off about a dozen of you. Didn't any of you think? If a man with a staff is good enough to keep that many of you occupied, don't you suppose he's good enough to kill a bunch of you?”
Surprised eyes met surprised eyes.
Whheeeee...
I looked at Gairloch.
Yelena grinned-for an instant. “You!” Her hand jabbed at a dark-haired trooper. “You can stable Master Lerris's mount, in the stall next to the commander's, and I don't care whose mounts you have to move.” She turned back to Thrilek. “Wait with your trooper outside my office, and I also don't much care how long you have to wait.”
By then they were both sweating.
I unstrapped the bags and pack and threw them over my shoulder, but I did keep hold of my staff.
Yelena turned to me and lowered her voice. “You know, Master Lerris... you have this knack.”
“Of getting in trouble?” . “Things do get interesting whenever you're involved.”
I glanced back at the dispersing troopers. “Did I make a mess of this all by myself, or are they as dumb as they seem?”
“I won't comment on your actions. I'd get in trouble either way. Your judgment of the quality of our forces is close to true-unhappily.” Yelena wiped her forehead. “The commander will be happy to see you, I think.”
After my entrance I wasn't all that sure.
Of course, Krystal was off somewhere in the upper building with the autarch, and Yelena ended up escorting me to {Crystal's quarters, guarded-still-by good old Herreld, who filled up most of the narrow space between the dark stone walls. The only light came from a thin embrasure opposite the door, although there was an unlit lamp in a brass bracket on the left side of the doorway.
“Greetings, Herreld.”
“Greetings, Master Lerris. She'll not be here.”
“I'll just wait.”
“She'd not mind if you waited within, Master Lerris.” Herreld actually opened the door.
“Thank you.” I tried not to gape, but I did catch a hint of a grin from Yelena.
“The word is that you taught the locals a lesson, ser.”
“I don't know about that. I broke one fellow's wrist-he didn't give me much choice.”
“That be Unsel-he'd have ye believe no blade matches his.” Standing in the doorway, Herreld gave me a smile.
“Master Lerris?” asked Yelena.
“Yes?”
“Once you are rested, in a day or so perhaps, would you consider a little sparring, the way the red... the other mage did?”
“I'd be happy to, Yelena.” Tamra was never going to escape being the red bitch, I suspected, and if I could somehow manage to help Yelena... even if I weren't as good with a staff as Tamra, well, I suspected I owed it to her.
She bowed and was gone.
“There'll be more than enough wash water, Master Lerris, and I'll have more sent up for the commander.” Herreld nodded and left me in the corner tower room.
Krystal only had a single circular room in Ruzor, perhaps twenty cubits across, with a bed, a washstand, a desk, a conference table with six armless wooden chairs, a wardrobe, and a small table beside the bed that held an oil lamp with a burnished reflector to help with reading.
The stacks of papers on the battered plank desk and the small square table beneath the narrow window were familiar enough, as were the stained exercise leathers strewn across the unmade bed.
After setting down my packs, I hung up her clothes, either on the wall pegs or folded them and set them on the shelves on the one side of the wardrobe. Then I made the bed, and straightened things up-except for her piles of papers. Those I didn't touch. There wasn't as much dust in Ruzor as in Kyphrien or on the road, and what dust there was happened to be grayish.
I took my own decent browns and hung them up, hoping that the hanging would get rid of some of the wrinkles. Then I stripped down to my drawers and shook out my clothes before I washed up. The water turned dark, of course, by the time I was finished washing and shaving, but I felt a lot better, even though I would have preferred a shower.
Later, when I was sitting on the bed, reading through The Basis of Order, still hoping to find another clue as to how I could deal with so much chaos, there was a rap on the door.
“Yes?”
“Fresh water, ser.”
“Come on in.” I hadn't bolted the door.
An older woman marched in, opened the window, and threw the water in the washbowl out, letting it cascade down the wall. Then she refilled the bowl and pitcher from a large bucket, nodded brusquely, and left.
I picked up The Basis of Order again, absently wondering when I might see Krystal.
I had reread most of the introduction and was puzzling over another one of the more obscure passages.
... order and chaos can be linked, and twisted, into smaller and smaller segments, as the sands of the beaches are the result of the constant pounding of chaos against order. Even the greatest might find despair in building pure order or chaos from such sands...
Could someone take Justen's technique and refine it until order and chaos were fragmented into the tiniest of bits? What would happen then? Would anything?
The door opened, and Krystal stepped inside and closed it in a single motion. She shook her head. “Only reading?”
After we held each other for a time, she kissed me for a longer time, then gently disengaged herself. “You do have a good sense of timing. Yelena also told me you made a theatrical appearance.”
“As usual, I wasn't as forebearing as I could have been.”
“From what I heard, the guard wasn't particularly helpful.”
“No, but somehow I didn't think, and then I just had to defend myself.” I hugged her again.
“How was the trip?”
“Dusty.” I paused. “People are worried everywhere. They don't buy my crafting. Prices are going up, and I think a lot more people are going hungry. I'm worried. There's a lot of chaos building in the north...”
“That's why your timing is good. Kasee would like us to dine with her this evening.” She smiled. “But I'm glad you came to Ruzor.”
I hugged her again, and, after a moment, she stepped back, shaking her head. “You did manage to order everything here.”
With a shrug, I managed an embarrassed smile. Probably I did order things too much.
“I need to change, but I won't get very far unless you let me.”
“I don't know that I want to let you.”
So she didn't get very far beyond undressing, and I was glad I had straightened the bed. Krystal was, too.
“You are impossible!”
I kissed her, and then we didn't say much for a long time.
Later, when the light through the window had dimmed, she rolled over and shook me awake. “Now... we do have to get dressed.”
She dressed a lot faster than I did, but I managed to struggle into the browns and pull on my boots.
Herreld didn't blink an eye when we left, not even a wink.
“Just Kasee?” I asked as I followed Krystal down the narrow steps and across a courtyard toward the taller building behind the barracks.
“I think so. She looked relieved when she heard you were here.”
I wasn't sure I liked that.
Krystal didn't even have to knock. The guards opened the narrow, iron-banded door, and we walked right into a room no bigger than Krystal's, although all the walls were lined with dark wooden bookcases filled almost to overflowing. I hadn't seen so many volumes since the Brotherhood library in Nylan. Even with four oil lamps, the room seemed dim.
“Impressive, aren't they? Unfortunately, most of them are too old to be useful-those that are readable.” Kasee stood on the other side of the circular table and nodded to me as the doors closed behind us. “It's good to see you.”
“I apologize for the delay...” Krystal flushed.
So did I.
Kasee laughed. “I wouldn't have expected less, and in these uncertain times, it would have been foolish for you not to spend at least a little time alone together.”
That didn't help. We both blushed more.
“Before we get started, let me call for dinner.” Kasee lifted the brass bell and rang.
Two serving women brought in two trays, a basket, two pitchers, three mugs, and left us in the lamplight of the library.
Dinner was simple, very simple-slices of mutton, brown spice sauce, bread, and fried sliced quilla. I never thought I'd see quilla on the autarch's table, even on a conference table in an ancient stronghold.
Krystal poured Kasee and herself some sort of ale, and I filled my mug from the pitcher of redberry I had to myself.
“A drink to your safe arrival, Lerris.” Kasee lifted her mug, and we lifted ours and drank.
The redberry was good, properly tart, and I sighed.
“I hoped it would be good,” said the autarch, serving herself two slices of steaming mutton from the platter and edging it toward Krystal.
“It is.”
Kasee cut her meat and took several bites before speaking. “In one way, things don't seem too bad. Hamor has made no moves toward Kyphros. In another way, things are bad and getting worse. Almost all sea trade has been cut off, and our olives, dried fruits, and wool can only be sold through Sarronnyn. That means that what we get is going down while Sarronnyn gets the extra.”
The autarch took a quick sip of ale, and I munched on the heavy dark bread to take away the spice of the brown sauce on the mutton.
"Hamor controls all the important parts of northern Hydlen, and the explosion of the brimstone spring and the Yellow River have ruined Arastia and Sunta. So Faklaar and Worrak are really the only places of any size left outside of Hamor's control in Hydlen. Montgren has surrendered, as have the traders of Sligo.
“The Viscount of Certis is fighting a losing battle, and Jellico will probably fall before long-if it hasn't already.” Kasee shrugged.
Krystal looked at me, and I swallowed the meat in my mouth, wincing as a too-large chunk scraped my throat.
“That bad?”
“Too big a bite.” I took a sip of redberry. “I can't add too much, except that I think-I think-that Hamor is using a chaos wizard, maybe Sammel, to reopen all the old wizards' roads through the Easthorns as a quick way to get to Gallos and Kyphros. That way, they could march-”
“-right down the road through Tellura and into Kyphros,” finished Krystal.
I nodded.
“How do you know?” asked Kasee.
“I don't know it. I feel it.”
“With anyone else, I'd question that. Can you tell me more?”
Nodding, I quickly chewed and swallowed. “There's chaos coming from the Easthorns. It's somehow tied to Hamor, but I can't explain how. It's growing, and it's moving westward.”
“You think we should reinforce Kyphrien, rather than Ruzor?” asked Krystal.
“No.” I swallowed. “I think I probably ought to find the wizards' road and travel backward.”
Krystal paled.
Kasee shook her head.
“Why?” Krystal finally asked.
“Because I don't see how you can defend Kyphrien against both Hamor and chaos. If I can figure out how to stop them from using the road, then they'll either have to attack through Ruzor or through Gallos. At the least it will buy time. If you abandon Ruzor...” I shrugged. “I don't know exactly if that makes sense, but it feels right.”
Krystal pursed her lips.
The autarch sipped from her mug, and the library was silent for a time.
“Are you saying that you can stop the Hamorian armies?” Kasee finally asked.
“No. I think I might be able to deny them the use of the wizards' roads, at least those that are blocked.”
“How many troops should we send with him?” asked Kasee.
“A squad?” Krystal suggested.
“No. The last time I took a squad or more, most of them didn't come back. If I can't handle this with a handful, I can't do it at all. Four is all I need in Kyphros, and two squads couldn't protect me if we run into a whole army. I might be able to hide three or four others.” I thought. “Just three. That's all I know I could shield.”
“That seems to be settled,” Kasee observed dryly. “Lerris will attempt to use his skills to force the Hamorians to fight their way through Gallos first, and we hope that he can.”
I looked at her. “It's that bad?”
“It's worse. Leithrrse just got another five thousand troops, and more of those rifles for his Candarian allies. Right now, with levies, we could raise perhaps eight thousand against a force that could be three times that, and we'd have to fight with swords and arrows. There's not a crafter in Kyphros that could forge either their cannon or their rifles. We've managed to buy from smugglers-and others-threescore of the rifles and less than a thousand cartridges.” The autarch took a deep swallow from her mug.
“Geography helps us here,” Krystal added. “The main channel into Ruzor is long and narrow. That means they can't bring many of their ships into range of the walls at any one time, at least not more than a half score, and rifles don't help that much against thick stone walls. Ruzor's not like Renklaar or Worrak where a lot of deep water runs close to shore.”
I hoped that meant that Krystal and Kasee could hold Ruzor, at least for a time, and that would make Hamor's efforts in Gallos difficult. That assumed that one Lerris could keep the wizards' roads blocked.
“Can you do it?” asked Kasee.
“I won't know if I don't try. And I can't try if I don't get moving.”
“Not tonight.”
“Hardly.”
At least, we agreed on that. Even Kasee gave us a wan smile as we left the library.
On the way back to Krystal's room, under the dim light of scattered oil lamps, we didn't even talk about not talking about the future.
With her door closed behind us, and bolted, there were tears, and holding, and words meaningless to all but lovers facing desperate, and separate, battles. And, as I had come to expect, her pleas for me not to be a hero.
In the end, we slept, but neither long nor well.