The way the walls were set, there was no way to see what might be tied at the pier behind the walls, but whatever was tied there did not have masts that extended very high.
The guards and the walls suggested that this section of the harbor held the dreaded warships of Recluce, but if such warships were so fearsome, why were they being hidden? Was there something about them that the rulers of Recluce did not wish known? After a moment, he shrugged and continued walking along the edge of the harbor.
When he finally returned to the ship, after looking at shops, vessels from Hamor and Candar, as well as from Nordla and Austra, it was well into evening.
He took the staff back down to the carpenter shop. For the first time in days, Tarkyn wasn’t there. Kharl replaced the staff in the bin and headed back toward the forecastle. He slowed as he passed the women’s crew quarters, hearing voices ahead, then stopped just outside the hatch.
“…tell you…something strange about him…”
“…imagining things…”
“…wasn’t imagining…he’s walking down the street, and two of those creepy types in black…they greet him…like he’s one of ’em…”
“So? He works hard…doesn’t slack, and keeps his mouth shut…”
“…tell you…strange…”
“…worry too much, Asolf…you drank too much, too. Get some shut-eye…
“…tell you…”
“Sleep it off.”
Kharl waited quietly for a time before entering the forecastle. When he did step in and begin to ready himself for sleep, both Asolf and whomever he had been talking to were asleep, as were about half the crew-those that were aboard.
Kharl lay back on the thin mattress, thinking. How could he discover how he might be more than just a cooper? By further reading of The Basis of Order? By looking more deeply into things?
After a time, he drifted into sleep.
XLIII
Is there a source-a wellspring-of order or of chaos? Can something exist without a source? And if there be such, what is indeed the wellspring of chaos? Or that of order? There is but one, for chaos can be said to be the wellspring of order, and order the wellspring of chaos. These are so because, for so long as there is life, neither chaos nor order can exist by itself for long without the other.
Yet for so long as there have been peoples upon the face of the world, there have been those who championed order over chaos, or chaos over order. There have been those who denied the power of one, or of both. All creatures that live are born, and birth is the triumph of life. All creatures, from the largest to the smallest, are brought low by death, and death is the triumph of chaos.
If all things that have been born were never to die, within generations the very earth would be filled until none could move, and there would not be enough sustenance for all. If nothing were to be born, there would be no towns or roads, no grasses upon the ground, no fishes in the sea, and all would be desolation…
How can one say, then, that chaos is greater, or that order is?
— The Basis of Order
XLIV
After breakfast, before he headed down to the carpenter shop once more, Kharl glanced forward as he stood on the main deck, pitching but slightly. In all directions, he could only see the gray-blue waters of the Northern Ocean. Or they might be sailing the Gulf of Candar by now. He’d asked Furwyl, but the first said he wouldn’t know if they were actually in the Gulf until he took his noon sightings. The unseen border between the two varied with every map, in any case, Furwyl had pointed out.
Just another thing that he’d thought was more certain than it was, Kharl reflected as he headed down to the carpenter shop. He stepped inside to find Tarkyn working on his scrimshaw.
“I see that staff is still in the bin,” offered the older man.
“I tried to give it back.” Kharl shrugged. “The magister wouldn’t take it.”
“He say why?”
“He said it was mine now, and that I should take care of it.”
“Might see a little use, if we’re unlucky. Not like it once was. Not like twenty years ago, when there were pirates everywhere,” mused Tarkyn. “Nowdays, only have to worry when you’re close to shore near Renklaar or Jera…maybe Biehl and Quend.”
“There were that many pirates? I thought Recluce had always taken care of them.”
“Not just Recluce. The white wizards of Fairven hated pirates as well. That one thing they agreed upon, and before the cataclysm, there were few pirates indeed, and most of them did not last long. After the cataclysm…then there were many.”
“After the fall of Fairven?” asked Kharl. “I didn’t realize that was a cataclysm.”
“Aye, that it was.” Tarkyn set down the scrimshaw on the narrow bench built into the bulkhead. “Great waves swept out of the ocean and smashed into the harbors. Wasn’t a war fleet anywhere that survived, not even the ships of Recluce. I heard tell that even the black iron of their mages is not so strong now as then. Many of the steam engines that once worked did no longer, and those that did had not the power they once had…” The carpenter coughed and cleared his throat. “My grandsire once said that the ships of Recluce were of black iron and more than two hundred cubits in length, and moved twice as fast as a horse at full gallop. Now…they are swift, but not that swift, and little more than half that in length.”
“They don’t let people see them in Nylan.”
“Don’t let folk close anywhere. Still mighty ships. Saw one take down a Delapran pirate once. Like a shark half out of water she moved. Shells, something that looked like a cannon but wasn’t. Couldn’t have been half a glass before the pirate was sinking in flames from stem to stern. No…one thing a skipper doesn’t want to do is offend Recluce. Even worse than offending the Hamorians, for all their ships and guns. Upset the blacks, and you won’t have a ship for long, that’s certain. That’s why the pirates are few, and why they stay close to shore. At times, makes you wish for the old times, when there were almost none.”
“Does anyone know what caused the cataclysm? Fairven is…it was…somewhere in the middle of Candar. How could its fall cause great waves?”
Tarkyn laughed. “Folks have wondered that for years. Pride…that’s what it was. Ever since Cerryl the Great, the white mages got more and more sure of themselves. Cocky. First, they took over Certis, and Hydlen, and then Gallos. Before anyone knew it, they held all of Candar east of the Westhorns.” He snorted. “Was that enough? No…they started building a great road through the Westhorns, so as they could march their white lancers right into Sarronnyn.”
Kharl hadn’t heard that part of the story. “What happened?”
“Recluce sent some black mages. They were proud, too. Thought a few troopers and mages ’d be more than enough to stop Fairven. They weren’t. The whites smashed ’em and the Tyrant of Sarronnyn. Whites had all of Candar under their thumbs, except the Great Forest, Delapra, and Southwind. Might have gotten them, too, except that something happened.” Tarkyn smiled, as if inviting Kharl to ask.
“What?”
“Fairven fell in a single afternoon. No one knows how. Some say mages from Recluce. The one-god believers claim their god leveled it with thunderbolts. Others say the very earth revolted. One thing’s sure. Something melted most of the buildings-and they were stone-like they were wax in a furnace. Nothing grows there, and anyone who goes there these days doesn’t come back. Some of the hilltops are like black glass. Heard of a fellow who climbed one. Days later, his hair fell out, got sores all over. Two eightdays later he was dead.”
“I still don’t see how that caused great waves in the oceans.”
“Who knows? One thing certain though. The land moved. Some of the roads-the old stone roads…in places, they’re just split. Other places, the mountains fell on them, buried ’em and anyone who was traveling ’em them.”