Cyador’s Heirs

LXXII

When Lerial wakes on a cloudy oneday with the rain still falling, if in more of a continual drizzle than a downpour, he is slightly stiff and sore, but otherwise he feels well enough physically, but he could have done without the nightmares about seeing second company being overrun because he hadn’t anticipated what the Meroweyans did in time to save his rankers and squad leaders. The fact that, in the dream, he had struggled unsuccessfully to use order didn’t help his state of mind. The dry uniform was welcome, but, as he dressed, he kept thinking about how poorly he had judged the speed of the Meroweyan advance-and that his order skills are almost useless in battle unless a chaos wizard attacks his company.

You have to do something about that. You have to.

“That’s a serious face you’ve got on, ser,” says Kusyl, moving from the back room to stand in front of the low fire.

“Yesterday was serious,” replies Lerial dryly.

“That was yesterday. Can’t do anything to change what happened.” Kusyl shrugs. “A man’ll go out of his mind thinking about what he might have done … should’ve done … could’ve done…”

That’s easy enough for you to say.

Kusyl turns to Lerial. “Might not be my place to say … but you got handed a sowshit stew, ser. Couldn’t be a duke’s son anywhere in Hamor, except here, standing there a few yards from men and wizards that’d love to kill you. Not you as an heir, just love to kill a Cigoernean officer. Thing is … you do what officers’re supposed to do. You’re going to frig it up at times. Everyone does. Doesn’t matter. Matters what you do tomorrow.” The undercaptain grins. “You think too much about yesterday, you won’t be ready for tomorrow.”

“He’s right about that, you know,” adds Altyrn, who shakes the rain from his oiled waterproof, standing just inside the door.

Lerial knows they’re both correct, but he has trouble not dwelling on the past. You always have, whether it was your father or Lephi. He doesn’t know from where that thought came, but it feels true, and he can’t help but express a slight sardonic smile. “I think you two have made your point.” He manages a grin.

“Good,” replies Altyrn. “There’s a fairly hot breakfast in the house next door. You might get over there before Shaskyn eats everything.”

“That’s a good idea,” says Lerial. The growling in his guts agrees with Altyrn’s suggestion. “I’m on my way.” He knows part of his hasty departure is because he is indeed hungry, but part is because he doesn’t want to talk about why he should put yesterday behind him, much as he knows he must.

Breakfast is indeed warm, and welcome, especially if he doesn’t deal with the thought of chopped ghano, mixed with acorn bread and some sort of eggs, all held together with the bluish cheese. After he eats, he checks with his squad leaders, goes over what arrows and weapons are left, and then reports to Altyrn.

The majer accepts his report and asks, “What are you going to do now? You can’t keep checking on your rankers every glass.”

“Try to figure out some things … and see if I can do them well enough to practice them.”

Altyrn nods. “I’ll let you know if anything changes. I doubt the Meroweyans are going to want to ride and march through this.” He gestures toward the window. “They might surprise us, but the scouts will let us know.” He pauses. “Do you need the fire?”

“Not now, ser. I might not at all.”

“Good. No offense, but you’ve turned some chambers into ovens.”

Lerial just nods and sits on the only chair in the main room except for the one Altyrn has pulled up behind his narrow table. He needs to think.

It’s not as though ordermages can’t manage chaos, reflects Lerial. It’s that it unsettles them or … He isn’t sure exactly what, but healers deal with chaos, if in a different way, all the time. So it is the way of handling it. He can direct chaos through his patterns. He’s proved that. But to handle it without just redirecting chaos drawn and concentrated by a white wizard … that’s another thing. He doesn’t even like the idea. But … he’s already had to do things he doesn’t like in the slightest, such as killing people and ordering rankers into places where some will be-and have been-killed.

For a time, he goes over what might be possible, but, in the end, much as he worries about it, he needs to look into the clouds. He stands and makes his way to the front door. There is a slight overhang that mostly shelters a narrow area just outside. Lerial slips outside, closing the door behind himself. He does notice, in the gloomy light of a drizzly morning, that the plank siding of all the dwellings in Bherkhan, those that he can see, has an oil finish, but the finish is almost a tan color. Does every hamlet pick a different shade of oil? It does appear that way.

Lerial pushes away the thoughts of oil and directs his senses to the clouds above. There is a flow of order and chaos, a pattern, or rather two patterns, because there is one set of flows inside the cloud … and a different flow outside, and yet the two interact. There is also more order in the cloud than in the air around it, and Lerial thinks it should be the other way around … except … a cloud is a structure, while the air is more like chaos. He uses his order-senses to follow the patterns of a section of the clouds just to the east, because he can see them, at least he can see them as well as he can see anything, while staying under the overhang of the roof and not twisting his neck.

The two patterns … they’re almost like the order line coil creates a related chaos coil … of sorts. Except that the comparison isn’t quite right, and Lerial cannot think of a way to make it so. But what would happen if you nudged the flow inside, because that’s more like order?

Lerial does so, and the chaos outside the center of the cloud strengthens, as if more is flowing to join that already there. He keeps watching. Is the patch of sky to the east darkening? It certainly looks that way.

Then, there is a small flash of … something, as if chaos had flowed one way, and order rebounded along the same path … or maybe it had been the other way. Lerial cannot tell because it has happened so fast, but the thunder that follows suggests that whatever he did triggered a small bolt of lightning.

The rain to the east intensifies, for perhaps a tenth of a glass before stopping. The clouds there, or now more to the south, because they are slowly moving southward, begin to thin, so much so that, for perhaps a tenth of a glass, hazy sunlight filters through that thin film, but before long the order-chaos patterns in the clouds reassert themselves, and a more uniform drizzle dribbles down on Bherkhan once more, except, Lerial notices, the drizzle is finer and lighter than before.

Of course! You changed the patterns, and the clouds rained harder, and that left less water in them … Lerial nods, even as he finds himself grinning. And you did something that created lightning, if only in the air.

He takes a deep breath, knowing he has a great deal of effort … and work ahead of him … if he can even make what he has in mind work, but if he doesn’t …

He doesn’t even want to consider those possibilities. Instead, he sends forth his order-senses once more.