The Chaos Balance

CXIV

A cricket…or grasshopper…or something…chirped in the darkness from the grass beyond the trees of the woodlot. The faint reiseralike odor simmered in the late-evening stillness.

Nylan glanced briefly through the darkness toward where Sylenia and Weryl slept, then toward Ayrlyn. “Aren’t you tired?” He closed his eyes as the intermittent light-knives stabbed through them.

“Yes, but I’m not sleepy. My head still aches…”

“I know.” So did Nylan’s, and every so often his vision blurred, and white flashes or sparks kept blinding him, sometimes so that all he had been able to do when riding away from the river was hang on and hope the mare didn’t carry him into trouble, hope that Sylenia would just find somewhere halfway safe.

It seemed as though they had ridden through eternity, through a rainstorm that, paradoxically, had relieved the worst of the chaos backflash agony.

Where exactly they were, he wasn’t sure, except that they were farther south and closer to the forest. He hoped so, anyway, but he was too tired to worry or ride anymore.

“A lot of this doesn’t make sense, not to me,” he confessed.

“That’s because you’re not a comm officer or a sociologist,” she pointed out. “It didn’t make sense to me at first, either. Look at it rationally, though, or Rationalistically, if you will.”

He groaned at the pun, then rubbed his temples.

“This is a highly regimented and organized culture-and one in which women are held in very low esteem-as valued property. There has to be something like an aristocracy with some pretty high-handed privileges. That whole town screamed it.”

“Huhh?” Nylan’s head continued to throb. Then, he’d been the one to kill two of the locals.

“All the houses are shuttered, despite the heat. The entrances are screened with bushes, or, in the towns, barred with grates. There are no signs indicating where anything is, and all the houses look pretty much alike. Have we seen a single girl? Just one pregnant woman. The only horsemen have been armsmen in authority, and everyone runs from anyone who’s mounted, even before seeing who it might be.

“Why do you think I attacked first? It’s not because I liked the idea, or that I’m bloodthirsty,” she pointed out. “We were mounted, strangers, and bearing arms. That meant we were not only fair game, but that they would have attacked as soon as we refused to come with them. The good news is that no one is actually chasing us right now,” Ayrlyn finished.

“We’re strangers, and we knocked off three of the local police or the equivalent, and no one’s chasing us? Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’d bet those three armsmen were the entire local constabulary. They got killed. Now, that was outside of town. First, few if any of the locals are going to have the initiative to go see what happened, and those that do aren’t about to say because it would implicate them. That means every local can deny involvement, and most probably will. Plus, in this kind of system, who is going to want to travel to the next town or military district or whatever, to explain what happened-and risk rather direct interrogation? The reaction is bound to be slow.”

“Systems like that don’t work.”

“Oh, yes, they do.” She said grimly. “These…Cyadorans have a highly developed sense of passive resistance and absolute military or aristocratic authority over anyone who doesn’t fit. It’s pretty obvious that any woman out in public is free game, but safe behind her house walls. Local men are probably respected by the aristocrats so long as they scrape and bow in public, and the local men stay as far from the aristocrats as possible. Look at the houses. Unless you’re a local, how would you even be sure who lives where? The nonaristocrats aren’t allowed weapons, and I’d bet that even the aristocrats face stiff social restrictions on how and when they can use theirs.

“Except for stealing from the fields, we can’t and won’t get supplies, because they’re locked up to ensure rigid accounting, and because every store will slam a very heavy door before you can get there. If we did get inside the walls, then the local rules would make us fair game, and these people have a lot of pent-up aggression, I’d bet.

“Every armed force has the right to kill or torture us,” the redhead continued-“or rape Sylenia and me-or you, if that’s how they’re inclined. The borders are closed, and geographically isolated, which limits strangers, and singles them out.” Ayrlyn yawned. “No, as long as they can keep out large numbers of strangers, the system will work fine. And in some ways, probably better than other societies in Candar.”

Nylan swallowed in the darkness. What Ayrlyn said made sense, perfect sense-even the precisely edged woodlots. But he had trouble believing it.

“I know. So do I, but it all fits.”

“I keep wondering if this is just a fool’s quest.”

“I have all along.” She chuckled, except it was a low and bitter sound. “But what choice do we have? Could we hold up to another battle?”

“No.” The brief encounter with the overmatched Cyadoran locals had proved that. As Ayrlyn had pointed out, they might not have been able to survive if they’d let the Cyadorans start the attack. The next time, even if they drew steel and struck first, he wasn’t sure they’d be able to hold up as well as they had the last.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life running and sweating your way through Candar, always looking to your back? Or do you want to crawl back to Ryba?”

Nylan winced.

“Well…any other ideas?”

He didn’t have any-not that were any better. At least, if they could find…something…in the forest…some way to stop the Cyadorans…then they might be able to retreat to a hilltop in Lornth.

“We’ll never be able to retreat anywhere, Nylan,” Ayrlyn broke in. “We might be lucky enough to have a permanent home from which we can sally forth.”

The grasshopper or cricket chirped again, and the sound reverberated inside Nylan’s ears and skull.

“Get some sleep. You’re tired. I’ll wake you if I get sleepy.”

“You’re sleepy, too,” he protested.

“Not as sleepy as you are.”

Nylan leaned against her thigh and closed his eyes. Maybe…maybe…he could sleep.