Colors of Chaos

CVIII

CERRYL WALKED FROM the covered porch of his dwelling out into the light and cold rain and along the brick walkway to the masonry house beyond the courtyard wall of his dwelling. There a handful of lancers milled around a wagon drawn by a single bony horse.

The rain-small drops that felt partly frozen-carried a slightly sour odor, or perhaps the moisture drew the scent of recent pillaging and death out of the ground. Cerryl frowned as he heard the mutters.

“Tools…supposed to use these?”

“Worse ’n road duty…”

“It’s the mage!” called a voice.

The lancers stepped back, and Hiser rode forward and reined up beside the wagon horse. “We got some tools in the wagon there, ser. And some shutters, at the back. Shutters-need to replace the ones on this side of the dwellings here, all of them. Some fool ripped ’em off the brackets so hard that the wood splintered.”

“It was rotten,” Ferek added as he rode up and joined Hiser. “Half the town is rotten. Too much rain. Rains every day here.”

“I sent men to get shutters from buildings that were too damaged for anyone to use,” Hiser explained.

Cerryl glanced at the two men standing nearest the side of the wagon.

“The ones we got, they need to be cut down,” said a burly lancer. “Got a saw here that might do.”

Cerryl studied the saw, then shook his head. “That won’t do, not if we can find a better one. It’s a ripping saw. We need one with finer teeth, about half that big.”

“Ripping saw?” Ferek’s mouth opened.

Hiser grinned, then wiped the expression away.

“A ripping saw rough-cuts planks, going with the grain rather than across it. Use those teeth on those shutters,” Cerryl winced, “and you’ll rip the wood up almost as bad as the ones you can’t use.” He stepped toward the wagon, rummaging through the indiscriminate piles of hammers, adzes, pry bars, mallets, and, in the corner, several other saws. He pulled out one, a smaller saw. “See? The teeth are smaller, finer, and closer together. Use this to shorten those shutter frames.”

It would have been faster to do it himself, but he was one person. If they would just use the crosscut finish saw or knew what tools to use, without his looking over someone’s shoulder all the time, more would get done. He couldn’t do the work they were supposed to do. It wouldn’t leave him time for what he had to do.

“You heard the commander,” snapped Ferek.

“Lancers be not crafters,” mumbled a lancer near the rear of the wagon. “Didn’t ride to Spidlar to do no sawing.”

“You didn’t?” asked Cerryl, flicking the smallest flash of chaos fire past the complainer.

“Sorry, ser!” The lancer stiffened.

Cerryl wanted to shake his head. How many are like that? Unwilling to do things if they think it would make others think less of them?

“Make sure the roof gets patched, too,” Cerryl reminded Ferek before turning to Hiser. “You bring a squad and come with me to the river piers. I’ll be riding out in a bit. Those need work, if we want supplies from Gallos.”

“Yes, ser.”

Cerryl walked back to his quarters, then to the stable, where he saddled the gelding. He needed to inspect the river piers more closely, to see what needed to be done to get them ready to handle the barges once spring came. Or now? From what he could tell, they didn’t have enough provisions for more than a few eight-days. He didn’t want to have to raid the countryside if there were any other way.

He patted the gelding’s neck, led him out into the courtyard and mounted, then rode out through the carriage gate. The sound of hammers, and a saw, echoed from the lancers’ dwelling. Cerryl permitted himself a tight smile.

“Ready, ser,” offered Hiser as he rode up with a squad of lancers.

Cerryl nodded and turned his mount.

“Men are not happy about fixing up Elpartan houses.”

“Right now, who else can?” Cerryl snorted, letting his voice carry. “It rains most of every day, it seems, and we’ve driven off most of the able-bodied locals. Those who might be hiding nearby we won’t find, and winter’s coming. We’re in this war because Spidlar and the traders don’t pay their tariffs. So where are we going to get the coins to bring in laborers-or crafters?”

“Couldn’t the High Wizard order some here?”

“How? The prefect of Gallos or the viscount will find some way to avoid doing it or send us people who are worse than our lancers and cost the Guild coins we don’t have. If we bring crafters from Fairhaven, how could we not pay them? If we don’t, they’ll disappear, and they won’t flee back to Fairhaven, and then we won’t have crafters, and neither will the folk at home.”

Hiser gave Cerryl a strange look but only nodded.

Cerryl understood the expression. The subofficer wondered why the High Wizard had even started the war.

“That’s why the High Wizard didn’t want to use chaos on Elparta,” Cerryl offered. And why you’re stuck trying to put it back together. Maybe Anya was right. Maybe it was better to use a lot of force quickly. He forced a long, slow breath. And maybe there’s never any good answer.

More of the fallen stone, timbers, and bricks had been cleared from the main route westward toward the river, but the streets remained mostly deserted. Cerryl saw but one dog, a brown mutt that slunk down an alleyway as the riders passed, tail nearly between its legs.

The middle river gates were on their heavy iron supports-or had never left them-and were open to the piers. The stench from the piers was strong, despite the increasing rain-a mixture of rotting foliage, fish, and other decaying matter, mixed with the smell of mud. Mud was piled everywhere, over the splintered and broken planks that had once formed the deck of the piers and been cast against the rabbled river walls, up almost to the top of the tilted and shortened stone pillars that had comprised the base of the piers. Beneath the pillars, and under the mud, Cerryl could sense that most of the pier bases were solid.

Jeslek’s flood or whatever it had been had piled so much mud against the solid stone bases of the piers that the river was now flowing more than ten cubits from the ruins of the piers.

Cerryl studied the jumbled mass of planks, stone, and mud. Could he use chaos-or loosen order enough-the way he had in the road battle, so that the river would carry away the mud?

“Be hard to put them back together,” murmured Hiser.

Cerryl dismounted and handed the gelding’s reins to the subofficer. The mage walked forward, then back to the pile of huge stones that had been the river wall. There he concentrated, working on loosening the bounds of order, shifting them beneath the pier bases and to the river walls, leaching order out of the mud heaped against the remaining stone pillars.

Unnnnnhhhh…The mud shifted, ever so slightly, and then seemed to slump. Bubbles frothed up through the gray-brown soupy mess.

For a time he just sat down on one of the larger stones from the wall, holding his head in his hands, while stars flashed across his vision.

The rain began to fall more heavily from clouds that had darkened, unnoticed by Cerryl, and mixed with the droplets were ice pellets that bounced off the oiled leather of his jacket.

At last, Cerryl stood and made his way along the edge of the fallen river wall to where Hiser and the squad waited. Hiser’s eyes were on the mud and on the river water, which seemed darker than before.

Cerryl remounted and followed the subofficer’s eyes with his own, noting that the fizzing and bubbling continued and that the river was eating away the slumping mess from around the pier pillars and bases. He nodded, then massaged his forehead. Should have eaten before you came out here.

“The mud’s going…”

“Don’t believe that…”

Cerryl blinked, then turned to Hiser. “We still need planks to refinish the top of the piers and some logs for the round posts…”

“Bollards,” supplied a voice.

“Bollards,” agreed Cerryl, turning.

A wiry man in tattered gray stood on the mud-smeared river wall, a good ten cubits to Cerryl’s right. A sabre leaped into Hiser’s hand.

“Greetin’, ser mage. You want to put the piers right again?”

Cerryl nodded.

“Best you use your tricks to shift that bar upstream some, then, or ’fore long you be having the same mud back around the pier columns.”

Bar? Cerryl’s eyes flicked upstream, finally catching sight of a mud bar or sandbar slightly to the west of midstream.

“Water comes off the bend and splits…Slow stuff drifts to the east,” added the spritely old figure, as if everyone should have understood his words.

“Did you used to run the piers?”

“Me? Not a lead copper’s wager. Jidro, at your service. Few years back was lead boatman for Virot’s barges.”

Cerryl let his order-chaos senses range across the man, then nodded. “You want a job? Being in charge of rebuilding and running the piers?”

“Aye, and you’d turn me into ashes first time I displeased you.”

“I don’t do that unless people lie to me or attack me.”

Jidro grinned. “Won’t live forever, and I’d like to see ’em run right. But need one of your lancer subs to give orders. No one listens to an old fart like me.”

Cerryl grinned, then glanced toward Hiser. Ferek was too stiff. “Hiser…let’s see what Jidro can do for us.”

“Ah…yes, ser.” An expression between horror and relief flitted across the eyes of the blonde subofficer.

Again Cerryl hoped he’d read things right. More hope…never quite knowing.