“Let’s see.” Nylan turned his mount to the left and off the road, heading downhill.
“…not even a road…”
“…knows where he’s going…”
“…so does she…”
As they rode downhill toward the well-sensed but unseen valley, if a place that tried to fool human vision could be claimed to be unseen, Nylan noted a growing sense of calm, of balance before him, and a growing consternation in the saddles behind.
“…something there…but my eyes…”
“…told you…”
Finally, he turned. “It’s just a grove of trees. There’s some sort of magic shield around it to protect it from being logged or destroyed. That’s all.” Not quite all, by a long shot, but nothing to harm them. Whether it might harm Ayrlyn or him was another question. And it isn’t really a shield, either. He took a deep breath.
“Not quite all,” murmured Ayrlyn as she eased her mount closer.
“I know. I can feel it, but it’s not harmful.”
Abruptly, when the ground flattened near the base of the hill, they no longer had to use their order senses to force their eyes to see the grove.
“Oh…”
“Where…the trees come from?”
Even Weryl added an “oooo.”
Less than a dozen huge and spreading pines formed a circle, shielding the needle-carpeted center area with a canopy of green. The area under and immediately around the trees was open, covered only with a deep carpet of pine needles.
A narrow and fast-moving brook bordered the grove, appearing out of the tangled thorn bushes and redberry bushes to the southeast. Was it from some sort of underground spring? There wasn’t a stream south of the valley. Of that Nylan was certain.
Downstream, on the northwest side of the grove, the same stream vanished into another tangle of bushes, except far enough away to leave a clearing in the open.
The cool and shadow of trees and the hills were more than welcome to the smith. He took a deep breath, a breath free from dust for what seemed the first time since they had left the Westhorns a long season earlier, a breath filled with the clean scent of pine.
The smith turned in the saddle. “We’ll camp in the open space at the end. We can sleep on the needles around the trees, but keep the fire clear of them.”
Sias glanced up at the towering evergreens, and then at Buretek. “Did you see these up on the hillside?”
Fuera reached out, leaning sideways in the saddle, and thumped the ridged and age-darkened bark. “Solid…most solid.” He shook his head.
Nylan smiled slowly. Maybe there was something to the trees…and to the dreams…maybe. He hoped so.
“There is,” Ayrlyn affirmed as she dismounted and led the chestnut to the downstream area just before the brook vanished into the thicket again. After a moment, as the mare drank, she added, “The redberries are ripe, and there are plenty here. But watch the thorns.”
Watch the thorns-wasn’t that the general prescription for life? What other surprises might there be?
After a moment, he dismounted and followed Ayrlyn, as did the others.
Overhead, the pine boughs whispered ever so faintly in the late afternoon breeze, a breeze that only the trees showed.
XCVI
“No one steals the copper of Cyador. No one mocks the Mirror Lancers. Triendar…I want to teach those barbarians a lesson,” snapped Lephi. “Turn the white fires on them, make them white dust-you know, unwrap the ancient chaos on them.”
“I fear that I do know, Your Mightiness,” replied the slight and balding figure, brushing short white hair off his left ear.
“You fear that I know what I want?” Lephi laughed, harshly.
“What you want will destroy you and Cyador. Not to mention me,” replied Triendar dryly.
“Explain this,” demanded the Lord of Cyador, Protector of the Steps to Paradise. Silence fell across the hall, and the polished white stone tiles appeared as cold as the ice of the Northern Ocean in midwinter.
“The ancient mirror towers were based on the powers of chaos. So are our powers. Chaos by its nature must be balanced by order. That is how the firewagons operate. The order of the boilers and chambers and the tubing contains the chaos of water heated into steam. The chaotic force of the moving wheels is balanced by the order of the stone paving blocks.” Triendar paused.
“You have belabored those points before, Triendar. Why do they mean you cannot turn chaos upon the barbarians?”
“I did not say that, Your Mightiness. I said that turning chaos upon them would likely destroy Cyador and us. Such chaos would allow the Accursed Forest to surge beyond its boundaries-”
“One moment, ancient Triendar. You have always claimed that the forest held equal parts of order and chaos. How can your use of chaos allow it to expand?”
The white mage sighed. “It is not simple to explain, but I will try. If I marshal chaos against the barbarians, that concentrated chaos allows order to be concentrated elsewhere in Candar. The forest will use that order to expand, but once expanded, will balance order and chaos within its boundaries. For us to contain it will require more chaos, which will free order to strengthen it further.”
“How is Themphi containing it?”
“Poorly-and with the less concentrated chaos of men with torches. Even so half your foot and lancers labor around Geliendra.”
“That is why we must use your weapons against the barbarians,” pointed out the Lord of Cyador.
“Then too, as I have explained before, there is the problem of the fireship, and all the chaos it must carry,” Triendar continued, as if he had not heard Lephi.
“How does that affect the Accursed Forest? Even the shipworks are stoneworks built up from the water, and water contains order, much order, you have said.” Lephi’s voice sharpened. “You do not listen to me.”
“I do listen, but chaos is never simple. A fireship, with the fire cannons you wish and the bombards and the chaos engines, it creates much chaos. Add that to all that has been stirred up this past year…” Triendar looked at the man in silver and white.
“You tell me that I cannot bring chaos against the barbarians and contain the Accursed Forest? That I must not complete the fireship.”
“No. The fireship will not be ready. While it embodies much chaos, some is contained by the waters of the harbor and by the ordered iron that binds the engines and fireboxes. Most of the chaos it will create will be when the engine operates, and you cannot bring it to Lornth, can you?”
“I had thought, if the conflict drags on, to bring the ship around the point of Dellash and to fire that northern port-Rulyarth, I think.”
Triendar shivered.
“Forget the fireship for now. As you say, it is not ready. But I will dare the fates. We must take the risk. To allow one small barbarian clan to seize our copper and destroy white lancers unpunished…what will stop the Jeranyi from surging west across the Grass Hills? Or those Kyphran traders…”
“Your Mightiness…Cyador, as you have pointed out, is scarcely powerless.”
“Triendar…we have few firewagons, and they only operate on the stone roads. We have none of the ancient fireships, and but one under construction to replace them-”
“The ancient ships were destroyed because they were failing.” Triendar nodded. “As this one will fail in a few years under the pressure of chaos.”
“We will build others.”
“And you will build chaos, and the Accursed Forest will use that to grow.”
“We will face that when we must. For now, the barbarians must go, before they become a greater threat.” The Protector of the Steps to Paradise stopped and surveyed the closed doors to the hall, the wisps of steam that drifted around the fittings. “We have instilled order and obedience into our people, and we cannot turn them into warriors overnight, and if we tried…” Lephi shook his head.
“They would strike first at the Mirror classes, you fear?”
“No. But the taxes and tariffs would rise, and then, so would disobedience, and that would make the Mirror Lancers and Foot more arrogant…”