The Chaos Balance

CXXXIII

The candelabra held lit stubs, barely a finger in length. Wax drippings wound around the silver base and seeped across the purple cloth. Three empty bottles stood on the table. So did two goblets, one full, the other empty. Against the glass of the center bottle rested a half-curled scroll.

Zeldyan reached for the scroll again, then stopped, and looked across the table toward Gethen. “Reading it once more will change nothing. There is nothing left of Syskar, Kula, and dozens of smaller hamlets. Clynya is a charred ruin, and the field crops have all been fired, those that could not be harvested quickly before the white demons destroyed them.” She glanced toward the half-ajar door to the adjoining room that served as Nesslek’s bedchamber. “A poor beginning, my sleeping son.”

“Poor indeed,” rumbled Gethen. “I have found less than tenscore in armsmen to bring here to Rohrn for Fornal. Tenscore! Two small companies of the white demons’ lancers would overwhelm them in a morning-or sooner. Tenscore, and the holders begrudge that, even while they demand we hold back the demons.” His eyes fixed Zeldyan. “And you, daughter, letting me go, and then bringing Nesslek to this rundown place.”

“You would have me wait helpless in Lornth? This way I could bring all the armsmen from the keep. You need every blade that can be found.” Zeldyan brushed back a strand of blond hair, and her fingers dropped to the table, then curled around the base of the crystal goblet that bore the etched seal of Lornth, a goblet mostly full of the amber white of Carpa.

“I do not know that all the cold iron in Candar would stop them.” Gethen touched his beard.

“Fornal would claim so.”

“That we know.”

“My brother claims much.” Zeldyan glanced toward the bedchamber door yet again. “My brother…”

“You question…?”

“I do not like the way in which he regards Nesslek,” admitted Zeldyan. “Was it not Sylenia who brought them to heal my son? Was it not Fornal who insisted he was not ill? Yet I feel much discomfort in saying such.”

“You say it, my daughter.”

“I feel it. As I felt it when Fornal suggested to Relyn that he could claim the ironwoods.”

“Fornal said that?”

Zeldyan nodded. “Did you not know?”

Gethen cleared his throat, lifted his goblet, sipped, set it down. Finally, he spoke. “Where are your angels now?”

“I do not know. I will not yet give up hope, not while Lornth stands.” Zeldyan sipped from the goblet she had refilled but once.

“You have greater faith than I, my daughter.”

“Faith? I know little of faith these days. I know people. Lady Ellindyja will die prating of empty honor. Fornal will use a blade at the slightest pretext. You will use arms, but only if all else fails. And the angels, they will keep their word, or die. If they can, the angels will return.” The candles flickered in the momentary breeze that flitted through the open window, bringing the sour smell of Rohrn, a town that had seen better days.

“If they can…” Gethen said.

“We have not lost that from which we would not recover.”

“Not yet, but the white demons are like locusts, or like a grass fire, charring everything before them.” The gray of Gethen’s hair glinted in the dim and flickering light that shifted as the candle flames wavered in the gentle and cool breeze from the open window. “If your angels do not return…we will fight as we can…as we can…”

“They will return.” Zeldyan’s fingers tightened on the goblet, and her eyes went to the partly open door. “They will return….”