5.Death of Chaos
LXXXVIII
East of Yryna, Gallos [Candar]
THE QUIET SOUND of soldiers shifting in their places echoes through the chill air of the deep canyon. A huge pile of rock that has collapsed from the cliffs to the left of the old road blocks the canyon. The old paving stones seem to march right up to the rubble.
Behind the troops stretch perhaps fifty kays of canyon that had once held the great Easthorn Highway. The base of that highway had been formed from the mortared and fitted stones that linked the foundation blocks. Each long section was straight as a quarrel, a segment of the road that had once run from ancient Fairhaven to Sarronnyn, a road that the white wizards had planned would run from Freetown-then called Lydiar-through the Westhorns and Sarronnyn and on to Southwind.
Now, yet another wall of fallen stone bars any passage, and the Hamorian troops wait once more. Scattered cedar trees and scrub oak dot the rocky mass that blocks the western end of the road. Beyond the piled rocks, the canyon continues westward.
A single figure in brown-brown sandals, tunic, and trousers-stands well before the Hamorian troops and studies the rock. The watercourse beside the uncovered section of the road holds a long narrow expanse of water, blocked by the fallen rock and the thin soil of centuries from its descent to the plains of Gallos.
Finally, the wizard turns to the man beside him who wears the tan uniform of Hamor and a heavy pistol on his wide leather belt.“I can do it, but it will be even more dangerous than any of the rock piles I removed earlier. You need to march the troops back a good kay.”
“Where will you be?”
“Almost that far back,” Sammel says with a smile. “There's more than enough chaos to work with.”
Leithrrse shudders.
“Don't shudder. You're the ones who created it with all those ordered ships and weapons.” Sammel's tone is matter-of-fact.
The Hamorian envoy turns to the officer with the silver braid upon his vest. “You heard the wizard. Move them back.”
The troops turn and march back along the paving stones, so recently scoured clean of debris with the lick of chaos flame.
After a time, they halt and wait, and low voices exchange comments.
“... bigger than anything he's tried so far...”
“... looks so kindly...”
“... kindly, like a hungry mountain cat's kindly...”
A flash brighter than noonday sun, sharper than the closest of lightnings, flares across the stone mass.
RRRRRurrrrrr... rurrrr...
The ground heaves, and the rock mass shifts, and shifts... and a chasm opens where the drainage way had been. Steam flares into the air, bearing brimstone.
Rocks and stone more than a hundred cubits high splinter, shatter, and slide northward into the maw of chaos.
In time, the flames and heat subside, and the wizard in brown trudges over to the ancient kaystone. There he sits down, holding his head, ignoring the letters graven on the stone: “Yryna 75 K.”
“When can we march?” asks Leithrrse.
“Let it cool a bit.” Sammel does not look up.
Where the rock had been a flat expanse of smooth stone, melted as smooth as glass, stretches half a kay to where the old road resumes.
The soldiers mutter and shake their heads.
Leithrrse drinks from his water bottle and wipes his forehead.
Deep beneath the rocks, chaos rumbles still, and the ground trembles.