Wellspring of Chaos

LXXIII

For the next several days, Kharl and the rest of the crew worked from just before dawn to after dusk. By twoday of the following eightday, Kharl and Tarkyn had replaced all the damaged planks in the Seastag, including several that Tarkyn had not realized were damaged, but that Kharl’s order-senses had discovered. Kharl had been careful enough to show the damage with a hammer and chisel, rather than claiming anything.

In the evenings, on a straight-backed chair pulled up under one of the few wall lamps in the common room of the bunkhouse, Kharl had taken to reading and rereading sections of The Basis of Order.

He was puzzling over a phrase-“the greater the concentration of order within objects, the greater the amount of free chaos in the world.”

At that moment, the door to the outside opened, and a gust of wind whistled through the room for the instant that it took a short and stocky man in a brown cloak to enter and close the door behind him. The newcomer glanced around the common room before his eyes lighted upon Kharl. Nodding, as if to himself, he stepped forward.

Kharl closed the book, still holding it, and stood. Although he had never seen the man, he could sense the darkness of order surrounding him.

“I’ve heard about you-felt you as well.” The man was well muscled, if graying, and his hair and the tunic under his heavy brown cloak were almost the same shade. He pulled up a chair and seated himself but a few cubits from Kharl.

Kharl sat down slowly. “Felt me?”

“Bit old for a blackstaffer, though.”

“Blackstaffer?” Kharl shook his head. “I’m not from Recluce. I’m a cooper from Brysta. Or I was.” Who was the man, and what did he want with Kharl?

“You can’t stay as a ship’s carpenter forever, much as Hagen would like to keep you. Sooner or later, you’ll do too much, or one of Lord Ilteron’s mages will discover you’re here.”

“An assistant to a carpenter?”

“You’re a better carpenter than Tarkyn is. He knows it, and that’s why he has you doing the precise work. He’s been around long enough that it doesn’t bother him, and it makes his life easier.” The other smiled.

“Why are you here?” Kharl asked. “Who sent you?”

“No one sent me. I came to see you, to offer you some insight…if you’re interested. You should be, if you’ve got any sense.”

Kharl still felt uneasy and off-balance. “Why did you mention Lord Ilteron? And not Lord Ghrant?”

“Lord Ghrant doesn’t have any mages.”

Kharl guessed. “He has you…doesn’t he?”

The other smiled. “Such as I am, I suppose. I couldn’t do much against true chaos-wizards. My little tricks wouldn’t even slow them down. That’s why I stay away from the Great House. I’d just call attention to Lord Ghrant’s lack of magery.”

“What kind of tricks?”

“Each skill has to be learned. Most cannot be taught.”

Kharl snorted. “I can’t teach coopering to everyone, but I can teach it to those who have the good hands and the wish to learn. I don’t see that magery is that much different.”

“It’s not. But the costs are so much higher if the student is ungrateful.” The mage, if indeed he happened to be one, rose from the chair. “Now is not the time or place to talk. If you want to learn more, not that I can offer you more than a small portion of what you could do, you need to come find me. I’m in the Nierran Hills. That’s just northwest of here.”

“You walked here?”

“Why not? It’s only five kays, and I had to see who was creating such an order-focus. Besides, I could use the exercise.”

“Order-focus?” Kharl frowned and, when the other did not respond, asked, “Who told you to come to me, and how would I get away?”

“Just tell your captain that you’re going to see Lyras.” He wrapped his cloak around himself and walked to the bunkhouse door. With a brief wave, he was gone.

“Who was that?” called Reisl from the corner where he and several others were gaming.

“I don’t know,” Kharl said, then added, “He said his name was Lyras, but I’ve never seen him before.”

Reisl offered a cryptic smile and went back to gaming.

Kharl looked down at the book in his hand, thinking about what Lyras had said about the costs of magery being so much higher than those of coopering. After a time, he opened the book once more and began to read. He found it hard to concentrate on the words…or what they meant.