The Chaos Balance

CXIX

Nylan blotted his forehead one-handed as he rode through the young trees that nearly reached his chest. The air was moister, but even in full afternoon sun with the sun falling full on his back, not nearly so hot as it had been in southern Lornth. The forest’s impact, he supposed.

As they neared the older growth, rising nearly a hundred cubits overhead, the mare sidestepped, then snorted, and tossed her head.

“She doesn’t want to enter the old part of the forest.” As he spoke Nylan realized how stupid the words sounded. He felt stupid.

They’d ridden up and down the borders of the forest, but everywhere was the same-spreading greenery, scattered and abandoned houses of a sophistication far above anything they had seen elsewhere in Candar…and the same unseen and looming sense of the forest, with its balanced flows of order and chaos.

It was like a riddle, a simple, but impossible riddle, and riddles had always made the smith feel stupid, because they were so obvious after the fact, and made him feel like he wanted to take something and bang his head or smash the riddler. But there was no way, and no point, to smash something like the forest. Still, he was beginning to understand why the Cyadorans had referred to it as accursed.

“It’s not that bad,” Ayrlyn suggested.

“I’m just frustrated. Every day we putter around here is another day that the Cyadorans could be attacking Lornth, another day wasted.” The silver-haired angel dismounted and tied the mare’s reins to one of the larger shoot-trunks. So did Ayrlyn.

“So you want to ride back to Syskar and get slaughtered after the first charge of the Cyadorans?”

Ayrlyn’s commonsense retort just made him feel more imbecilic. Instead of answering, he began to walk through the growing forest back toward the older growth, the towering dark trunks that stretched toward the green-blue sky.

His boots crackled, and he looked down at the desiccated and browning bean leaves and stalks. “It doesn’t care much for crops.”

“Or monoculture,” added the flame-haired angel.

Nylan stopped short of the creeper-covered wall, now only calf-high. “It’s lower. It shouldn’t be able to work this fast.”

“There are a lot of things that shouldn’t happen here.”

Nylan half-snorted. About that, she was certainly right. But those impossible happenings occurred all the same. He took a deep breath, then another, and stepped over the disintegrating white gravel that had been polished stone not that long before.

“Careful…”

The angel smith glanced around. Where he stood was in full shade, but otherwise felt no different from the newer growth.

Whufff…uffff…

“Easy…easy…” Ayrlyn’s words carried, and both mares seemed to settle down.

Nylan continued to survey the deeper growth to the south, his hand on the hilt of the shortsword at his waist as he turned his head to see what might have spooked the mounts.

To the south the trunks were spaced more widely, and clear openings ran deeper into the woods, almost like pathways. There was a sense of…organization, but how could a forest without more than rudimentary self-consciousness be organized?

“Balance,” suggested Ayrlyn as she stepped over the former wall and up beside him.

“Great. What do we do with balance?”

“Think about it.”

All he’d been doing was thinking about it, thinking about it and walking around it, and studying it…and what had he learned? Not much.

“We’ve learned that it can flatten you from a distance,” pointed out the redhead. “And that even the Old Rats couldn’t destroy it, but only confined it.”

“Or chose not to.”

“If they could have destroyed it and didn’t, given their inclinations, it meant there was a good reason why. One based in sheer power, I’d bet.”

Nylan yanked out the shortsword and began to walk along the de facto pathway deeper into the forest.

With a look over her shoulder, Ayrlyn followed.

The deeper woods were quiet, shadowed, with the same sense of everything in its place. A mixture of odors, like a muted and unfamiliar floral perfume, permeated the cool shade.

Nylan edged around a smooth-barked tree a good four cubits in girth.

Grrrrr….

Across an open space of less than ten cubits, at the base of a rough, gray-barked tree with fissured ridges and a trunk nearly as big around as the shed that stabled the horses, crouched a tawny cat. Bigger than any of the few Nylan had seen in the Westhorns, its body was more than five cubits long, and teeth like white daggers glistened in the shadows.

The smith’s fingers tightened on the heavy blade he carried.

“Don’t…” hissed Ayrlyn. “Just lower the blade and back away.”

Nylan paused. He hated to be backing up if the cat tried to pounce.

“Nylan…”

He lowered the blade, and took one step backward, then another.

Grrrr…

As he backtracked, he lost sight of the great cat, but kept listening for movement, watching for the slightest sign. Ayrlyn retreated with him, except more silently, and she had left her blade sheathed.

Moving backwards, it felt to Nylan that it took most of the afternoon to reach the creeper-covered wall, but the sun still hung midway in the afternoon sky when he stepped out of the older growth. “Why did you tell me to lower the blade?”

“Balance. It felt right.”

With a glance back toward the old growth, Nylan finally sheathed the blade, then wiped his forehead. He looked toward the towering trunks again.

“The cat won’t follow us,” she said.

“You sound so sure.”

“I feel sure, and that’s funny, because I don’t know why.” The redhead gave a nervous laugh.

“You were right. I wish you knew why,” Nylan said.

“It has to do with balance.” She spread her hands, almost helplessly. “I know it does. We’re still missing pieces.”

“We probably always will be, but we have to do something.”

“Such as?”

“We need to provide it with some direction,” suggested Nylan.

“How?”

Nylan sat up straighter. “I don’t know. Even trying to use any control of order flows seems to set off a reaction.”

“Balance…that’s the message.”

“But why? It doesn’t really think, not the way we do.”

“Does it have to?” asked the redhead dryly. “That’s our job, and we aren’t doing very well at it.”

The silver-haired angel untied the mare. “We need to think some more. Or talk. Or something.”

“You didn’t want to think,” she said with a faint smile.

“I have…we have…to think smarter…somehow. And I’m hungry.” And tired and worried and frustrated, and that’s just for starters.

“I know,” Ayrlyn answered softly. I know….