Chapter Four
“Ouch!” I sucked at my needle-stuck finger. Eirene glanced over and gave me a grin full of pointed teeth. “I have seen fewer holes in a dead Chademon.”
I grumbled and shrugged, then showed her the front of my jacket. “You can see I am ranked only in sword-fighting and, now, chess. A seamster I am not.”
“Nor likely to become one if you keep trying to attach that badge to your finger.” Roarke gave the bubbling stewpot one final stir, then stood, his knees creaking as he did so. “This has got the last of the spice Zavendir gave me a week ago, so you had best enjoy it.”
I filled my wooden bowl, then went back and leaned against Cruach to eat the steaming rice-and-lentil gruel. In the time since I had met Roarke and Eirene, the Chaos Riders had all but adopted me. I combined my supplies with theirs and had even taken a turn cooking—though both of them decided after that I need not share in those duties. To compensate I assigned myself the job of finding firewood and fetching water when we needed it, which meant Roarke and Eirene usually had a fire waiting for them when they finished their work of helping to settle the camp down.
During the days I rode mostly with Roarke as an outrider or a scout. While the rolling hills that led down to the sea plains of Herak were not exactly full of danger, to me they could have been in the very midst of Chaos itself. Roarke did not talk overmuch, but he did take time to point out things of interest and help to expand my meager knowledge of woodcraft and geography.
Eirene remained cordial, too, but aloof, which bothered me a bit at first. I thought, initially, she was just being polite in covering her dislike for me. Later, I got a chance to contrast her behavior around others with the way she treated me, and discovered she gave me a lot more latitude in asking questions and doing things my own way than she did other caravan guards. I decided that the caution which had kept her alive in Chaos and her comment about how Chaos Riders ought not to have people to leave behind meant she didn’t let people get close to her. I gave her plenty of room to be herself, and our relationship thawed a bit.
Fairly often Roarke or other members of the caravan’s guards used me as a messenger between them and Haskell or someone else in the group. In this way I got to know Haskell, the burly, swarthy caravan master, and the man praised my ability to repeat messages and make reports in a clear, concise, and exact manner. Haskell even hinted that a position with the caravan could be mine if I wanted to hire on for the return trip in the spring.
The winter wind hissing through the bare branches of the trees overhead reminded me a bit of Stone Rapids. I surprised myself when I realized I was actually weighing the good points and bad of staying with the caravan and never returning home. While I knew I would miss Geoff and Dalt and Grandfather, something inside felt hollow when I realized that I felt no great desire to return to Stone Rapids. Traveling with the caravan and talking with Roarke had opened up a world that I had glimpsed in books, and had kindled a desire in me to see faraway places. Stone Rapids had nothing to offer that could rival the Imperial capital and Chaos.
Sadly, I discovered that I had already begun to change. In the City of Sorcerers, I had actually beaten a chess Master! In just over a week I would be a guest at the Imperial Palace, attending the Bear’s Eve Ball. I could not imagine anyone from Stone Rapids having done what I had done and would do, then returning to the village to live contentedly. This realization both thrilled me and shamed me.
I ran my hand over the Novice patch Zavendir had awarded me. Looking up, I asked Roarke a question. “Do you think Zavendir was upset that I beat him?”
“How can you ask that?” Roarke frowned and set his bowl down. “You played him in three games. He beat you the first time, you beat him the second, and you drew the third game. Upset? He was thrilled someone was able to offer him more of a challenge than I do. What makes you ask?”
I dipped a finger into my gruel, then held it out for Cruach to lick clean. “I wondered because Zavendir made me a Novice, but I had beaten him …”
“I see your confusion.” Roarke picked his bowl up. “Zavendir could make you a Novice, which jumped you past the rank of Pawn, but no more. While he is ranked as a Master, he only wears white thread in it. Because it is an avocation with him and he is not paid to be a Chessmaster, he cannot confer upon you more than two ranks. He has, however, given me the name of a Gold-thread Chessmaster in Herak who, after a few games, could assign you to your proper rank.”
“I understand now, I think.” I smiled sheepishly. “Growing up in a very small village, I had little experience with ranking and testing. My grandfather only let me test up to the rank of Apprentice, obviously, and we had no one ranked in chess at all.”
“Ranking protocols can be strange.” Roarke scratched at the corner of his left eye. “Given that I started with the ax late in life, I will never progress above this rank. Don’t have a pedigree for my training, you see.”
Eirene pointed her wooden spoon at him. “Not that patches or ranking mean much in Chaos. There it’s just the edge on your weapon and your ability to keep wielding it that matters.”
My grandfather’s admonition to trust myself instead of patches again rang in my ears. As the caravan moved on and got closer and closer to Herakopolis, I found myself considering who and what I was. I knew I was a better swordsman and a better chess player than my patches indicated, but was that really important? To many people, because my father had been elevated to the rank of legend, nothing I could do would be sufficient to please them. I wondered if I would be accepted in the capital for being who I was, or would I be damned for the differences between who my father had been and what I had grown up to be?
Part of me braced for such a disaster. I hoped everything in the capital would be wonderful, but my nervousness at meeting the grandmother I could not remember started to gnaw away at me. In Stone Rapids I had heard enough stories about this person or that having met my father, that I dreaded hearing the same from people who had known him when he had become a hero. As we reached the plains outside the capital, and my time to leave the caravan behind drew near, my reluctance to do so grew.
I eagerly devoured anything and everything Roarke told me about Chaos and his years spent as a caravan guard. I devoted a lot of time listening to stories told around the campfires in the caravan. In the process I discovered that many of the books I had read in Stone Rapids were hopelessly out-of-date, which helped increase my anxiety. Whereas I had studied particularly hard so I wouldn’t appear to be a lackwit from Garik, I found all my knowledge appropriate for the time when my father first traveled to the capital almost two score years before.
Then, all of a sudden, it occurred to me that my father might well have had the same concerns and fears I did when he rode to the capital at my age. Though I harbored no illusions that I was in any way my father, I knew the capital had not killed him when he arrived. I decided to assume that, were I true to myself, I could avoid embarrassment. Moreover, if anyone decided to fit me with a bumpkin badge, they would be more the fools for it than I.
O O O
After supper I wandered down to the nearby stream to draw a bucket of water for washing up. A chill breeze nipped at my nose and ears, so I walked with my shoulders hunched against the cold and my eyes looking down at the twisting trail. In the twilight rocks and roots made the trek dangerous—if not to life and limb, certainly to one’s self-respect, as taking a tumble would undoubtedly make news faster in the camp than one’s return.
I made it to the stream uneventfully, dunked my bucket into the water, and turned to make my way back to the camp when I saw her standing at the foot of the path. I nodded to her respectfully. “Evening, Miss …”
Her icy blue eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
I must have looked like a fish that had just jumped from the stream and landed on the bank, because I stared at her gape-mouthed. That question didn’t stump me, of course, but her tone of voice surprised me completely. She demanded an answer of me, but an undertone of fear colored her words.
The fear almost seemed appropriate for her because at first glance she could easily be taken for a timid thing. Small and fine-boned, she seemed almost childlike. Her flesh had a translucency that didn’t reveal the bones beneath it, but suggested she would shatter like porcelain if hit. Her large eyes contributed to the image of helplessness.
The fire in them also worked against it. Her brilliantly red hair covered her shoulders and framed a face that was pretty now, but clearly would become beautiful as she grew into womanhood. There was no real mistaking her for a child, yet it was also hard to describe her as a woman. She was caught in that in-between stage of adolescence—a stage from which I was slowly emerging myself—so I felt a vague kinship with her.
I closed my mouth, then opened it again to answer her. “My name is Lachlan. I come from Garik province, from Stone Rapids.”
She shook her head vehemently, allowing her straight hair to lash back and forth against her pale throat. “No, that’s not it. That’s not what you are called in my dreams.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Your dreams?” I’d never had anyone say I’d been in their dreams before.
“My dreams, yes.” She frowned. Glancing down at the ground, she touched two fingers of her left hand to her left temple. “I see things. In dreams and in visions, I see them. I have seen you as a warrior—older, fatter somewhat. You fight demons in Chaos.”
“These things you see, are they of the past or of the future?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders weakly, as if the green woolen cloak she wore had been woven of Cruach’s fur. “Some is past, much is future, but I cannot distinguish which is which in some cases. With you I cannot tell.”
As much as I would have liked to believe she was seeing visions of me as a Chaos Rider, from the description I knew she was seeing my father. “They are visions of the past. That’s my father you see.”
“No, no, don’t be silly.” Her eyes flicked up toward me, sending a jolt through me. “Don’t you think I would know what I see?”
“But you just said …”
“You don’t understand!” She spun on her heel and stalked off back toward camp.
I started after her, then realized I’d forgotten the bucket. I went back for it and hurried along as fast as I could, but I couldn’t catch up with her. Somewhat bewildered, I returned to our campsite and sat myself down next to Roarke. “Something weird just happened.”
“Oh?” Roarke slid to the left as Cruach lay down between us. “What was that?”
“Down at the stream I met this girl. I think she joined us at the City of Sorcerers—I mean I think I’ve caught glimpses of her a couple of times since then. Small, red hair …”
Roarke nodded and scratched the dog behind an ear. “You met Xoayya. She did join us at the City of Sorcerers. They were sending her home.”
“Really? Why?”
“She’s a wild talent, a feral mage.” Roarke gave me a half smile. “Among warriors the equivalent would be a natural-born fighter. If you take a scrapper like that and give him some training, he usually turns out pretty well.”
I nodded. “But with magick the problem is not one that is so easy to train, right?”
“Exactly.” The Axman snapped a small stick in half and tossed it into our fire. “Haskell said Xoayya’s mother died when she was young. Her father was a fairly wealthy merchant who married into another merchant family. His bride was on her second marriage, too, and had two daughters who were slightly older than Xoayya.”
“And they treated her badly …”
“No, they actually doted on her and spoiled her. Xoayya was sheltered because they thought her very frail. When she started reporting she had visions, they thought her a bit insane and did what they could to cover up her little stories. Her father died somewhere along the line and it wasn’t until her mother’s mother intervened that anyone realized she was very talented in the way of Clairvoyant magick. By that time, though, the girl was untrainable and not much of a fan of discipline and hard work.”
I frowned. “I don’t understand that. I mean, I lost both of my parents, and yet I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“No, but you were trained to it from early on. She wasn’t.” Roarke shrugged. “There’s also some hint that, at least in the case of her father, she foresaw how he died and feels she might have been able to prevent his death.”
“Could she have?”
“You have multiple questions wrapped up there together, Locke. First you have to figure out if what she saw was accurate, or just a dream. When spells are invoked to look into the future, as I understand it, there is no solid way of telling if the vision is true or not. Clairvoyance is supposed to work best when the time factor is minimized.”
Roarke held up a hand. “In addition to that question, you have a more important one to look at. It is this: is the future seen the only possible future?”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s suppose you decide to get up now and go fetch more water. Or let’s suppose you change your mind and sit back down. Now what if what had been foreseen was along the time line that required you to get up and get water now? Since you didn’t do that, does that future no longer exist?”
“Ahhh, I see.” I nodded. “Or, is the fact that it’s been seen something that compels me to do everything that needs to be done to make that future come true.”
“Right. Are we creatures of free will, or is our future determined for us and we just become players in a production for which we don’t have a script?”
I closed my eyes and rubbed at them for a moment. “I opt for free will, but aren’t there prophecies and the like that predict the future?”
“Sure there are, but take a good look at them. Oracles that make such pronouncements always do so in vague terms. Your father, it was said, was destined to kill the Chademon Kothvir, but no method was specified. If your father had run him through or served him bad oysters, either method would have fulfilled the prophecy. Lots of room for free will there.”
“Fascinating.”
“Free will versus determinism is one of those discussions that can make long rides much shorter.” Roarke clapped me on the shoulder. “So, what did she say to you?”
“She wanted to know who I was and why I’d invaded her dreams. She saw me fighting in Chaos.” I shrugged. “Sounds like she saw my father, but she didn’t like that suggestion. She marched off in a huff.”
“Wild talents are like that. They don’t have the control over their ability. With Clairvoyants it’s especially hard because they can never be sure what they are thinking. For all you know she’ll see her meeting with you as a vision and never be able to sort truth from dreams.” Roarke smiled. “She’s a cute one, though. Having her dream of you can’t be all bad.”
“Not my type.”
“You grew up on a farm with your two brothers and your grandfather. When did you have time to determine you have a type?”
I started to explain about all the Bear’s Eve celebrations I’d attended, but I stopped. “No matter what I say, you’re going to make me feel foolish, right?”
“Gotta get back at you somehow for beating me so often in chess, don’t I?”
O O O
Riding ahead of the caravan through a snow-dusted meadow on the last day, I caught up with Roarke. “The night we met you said you knew stories of my father.”
Roarke’s lean body swayed with the motion of his horse’s walk. “I did, didn’t I?”
“How did my father die in Chaos?”
“I don’t know what happened to your father.” Roarke exhaled a plume of steam. “I heard he went on an expedition and never came back, but then again I heard he’s buried with your mother back in Stone Rapids. When Chaos is linked to a legend you can never tell truth from fiction.”
I felt my mouth go dry. “Was my father a good Chaos Rider?”
Roarke smiled easily. “That he was. Whereas other men would just use muscle against the Chademons, Cardew foxed them. He said, I’m told, fighting in Chaos was like a big chess game. He had mapped out many of the areas where time flows differently, figured out what the difference was, and was able to use that map to his advantage.”
My face brightened. “How did he determine what the time-rate difference was?”
The Chaos Rider arched his back and rotated his shoulders to loosen them. “Cardew was a thinker, he was. He took two twelve-foot-long planks and lashed hourglasses between them at the far ends of the boards. When he found a boundary he would insert one hourglass beyond it, then invert the whole contraption. By looking at how much sand was left in one when the other ran out, he was able to calculate the difference.”
“That was smart!” I smiled proudly. “He could use fast zones to speed healing for lightly wounded people and slow zones to secure his flanks.”
“Like father, like son.” Roarke winked his right eye at me. “That is very much the sort of thing he did. One time he had a man who had been mortally wounded. He placed him in a very slow zone, then sent riders all the way back to Port Chaos to fetch a magicker who could spell the man back to health.”
“But you don’t know what happened to him—my father, I mean?”
Roarke shook his head. “I don’t know. Cardew and the leader of the Black Shadows, Kothvir, had quite a rivalry. Kothvir even forged a sword with a likeness of your father etched into the blade. Mark of being a dangerous man, that is, to have a vindictxvara made to deal with you. And Kothvir stopped being a force among the Bharashadi at the same time your father disappeared, so perhaps Cardew got him after all.”
I had heard a similar thing in the past, but it felt good to have a Chaos Rider say it instead of a bard. “You said there were pockets of Chaos in which time moved very slowly, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So it is possible that my father and my uncle are still alive and trapped in one of those zones, or that they have been wounded and exiled themselves to one of them?”
The hopeful note in my voice seemed to make Roarke wince. “It is possible, Locke, but not entirely likely. I would rather bet that the sun and moons will collide than on your kin still being alive, I’m sorry to say.”
“But it could be true.” My eyes narrowed. “You said it yourself, ‘things like that happen in Chaos.’”
“So I did, Locke, but I didn’t say they happened all that often.” Roarke shook his head. “Anyone expecting to find a miracle in Chaos better be damned lucky, or prepared for a big disappointment.”
O O O
Cresting the hill on Herakopolis’s western edge, I saw a city that exceeded even Roarke’s glowing descriptions of it. Some of the larger estates in the outlying district had seriously impressed me, and I had embarrassed myself by refusing to believe that one or more of them were not the Emperor’s property. That individuals would have amassed enough money to own one building that itself was larger than my grandfather’s homestead quickly redefined my concept of personal wealth.
The capital started me redefining my concept of reality. Stretched out in a vast demilune around Herak Bay, the city consisted, for the most part, of whitewashed buildings with red tile roofs. Gaudily colored clothes flapped in the sea breeze from lines strung between many of the buildings, setting whole portions of the city in motion. A seawall and breakwater split the azure bay from the deeper ocean, while huge walls rimmed the city itself to protect from landward assaults.
The Imperial Palace dominated the top of the highest hillock in the city. A monstrously large building, each of the eight wings had been built by artisans from the different provinces. They worked with native materials from their homelands and created in the palace a simulacrum of the Empire as a whole. Appropriate provincial flags flew from the towers that capped each wing, while the white triskele flag of the Empire flew above the heart of the palace itself.
Northeast of it I saw a strange collection of buildings, each with a different architectural style, yet all arrayed around a central green. “Is that the Imperial University?”
“You see, the book you read about the capital was not all that antiquated.” Roarke glanced back along the road at the distant line of the caravan, then looked at the city again. “And there, to the north, is the Imperial Theatre. It is the stepped circular building with all those pillars. The one in white marble.”
“I see it. And that must be the Street of the Gods.” I pointed to a double rank of tall buildings with towers topped by stars and moons and animals. “And, obviously, that’s the waterfront.”
“Correct.” Roarke again looked back at the caravan, then frowned. “Listen, Locke, I have to ride back to the caravan and get the papers we have to present at the gate. You should ride ahead to your grandmother’s house. Do you know how to find it?”
“If the streets have not been changed in the last forty years.” I laughed. “I ride past the Church of the Sunbird for two streets. I go east and then north along Butcher’s Row. She lives in the fourth house on the right as you go up the hill.”
Roarke nodded with pride. “Spoken like you’ve lived in the capital for ages.”
“Thank you for your friendship on this trip. Will you, if you have time, come see me?” I asked quietly. “Will you bring Cruach?”
“The hound will probably hunt you out on his own, the way you feed him.” Roarke gave me a reassuring smile. “After Bear’s Eve, I will find you. Unless they decide to sail you back to Stone Rapids, I think Haskell will have work for you with his first caravan heading west again.”
“If you don’t, I’ll hunt you down at the Umbra.” I grinned as he looked a bit surprised at my naming a tavern that catered to Chaos Riders. “See, I remembered everything you told me about Herakopolis.”
“Sharp lad, but I don’t recall mentioning the Umbra.”
“You must have; I know I didn’t read about it.” I shrugged. “Bye, Roarke. Say good-bye to Eirene for me. Have a happy Bear’s Eve.”
“And you, lad. Try not to step on any princess’s toes when you’re dancing in polite company.”
“I won’t, promise.” I tugged gently on Stail’s reins and started toward the capital of the Empire. I joined the trickle of other folks entering the city, and the guardsman leaning against the wall barely gave me notice. By keeping an eye on the Sunbird Church’s tallest spire, I managed to negotiate the narrow, cobblestone streets of the city’s oldest section. The Street of the Gods proved to be a wide boulevard that I crossed easily.
I turned where I had been told to turn and located Butcher’s Row by seeing a bloody stream washing down the gutter. Heading up the hill, I counted houses once, then frowned and counted them again. Grandfather told me it was the fourth house, but it can’t be. That one is so … so big!
Audin had always spoken of my father’s mother in decidedly neutral terms, though he regularly expressed his disbelief at a woman of Garik finding happiness in Herakopolis. I knew very well the story of this girl from Stone Rapids marrying a merchant from the Imperial capital, but I had always assumed, from the way Grandfather told the story, that Evadne’s husband, before he died, owned a bazaar stall and sold copper pots.
Somewhat stunned by the size of the three-story building, I dismounted and just let Stail’s reins drop to the ground. Clearly this house belonged to someone more important than a bazaar barker’s widow. The wall around it hid the ground floor from sight, but trees and ivy vines overhanging it from the inside told me the house had a nice garden. I heard the tinkling of water landing in a pool, so that meant they had a fountain as well. The windows themselves were fitted with glass—much akin to the home of Stone Rapids’s Lord Mayor—but the blue and gold brocade drapes I saw in them were a lot finer than the Mayor had managed.
Even the stories Aunt Ethelin had told of this house had underestimated its grandeur. I turned around and counted one final time. It was the fourth house, but I couldn’t get rid of a sense of dread as I reached out and pulled the clapper cord for the bell beside the gate. It rang loud and strong, like an alarm bell, and I almost ran away because I just knew I had to be in the wrong place.
I probably would have run, but seconds after the bell’s echoes died, I heard a door open and close. I saw an old man accompanied by two hounds a bit smaller than Cruach come trudging up the crushed-stone carriageway toward the wrought-iron gate. I smiled at the man, but nothing short of a hive’s worth of honey could have sweetened the sour look on his face.
The man grabbed two of the gate’s iron bars. “And who would you be?”
“I am Lachlan. I have traveled from Stone Rapids to see my grandmother, Evadne, and accompany her to the Emperor’s Ball.” I stood up straight and wished I’d brushed the trail dust from my boots. “She sent for me.”
“Did she now?” The man scratched at a scraggly beard. “And who was it who sent you?”
I frowned. “My grandfather, Audin, Bladesmaster of Stone Rapids. He arranged a contest to choose from among my brothers and me for the honor of answering her request.”
The badges the man wore sewn to his sleeve marked him as a native of Herak and Evadne’s gardener. “So you’re claiming to be one of Cardew’s sons, or are you Driscoll’s whelp?”
“Cardew, sir.” I answered him fairly, only realizing at the last that he was baiting me.
“Fifth one this week. Just because she has a good heart, every orphan claims to be Cardew or Driscoll’s bastard.” The man backed away from the gate and waved me off. “Begone with you, or I’ll set the dogs on you. Bear’s Eve is still a week off, so you’ll not be bedeviling my mistress for seasonal beggings today.” He turned and wandered back toward the house.
Angry and embarrassed, I yanked the clapper cord once, hard, and the sound stopped the man cold. “Herakman, I will remain here and pull this cord once every ten heartbeats if you do not tell your mistress I am here. I am Lachlan, and I am here at her request.”
“Away, beggar, away! I’ll not be bothering her over the likes of you.” He turned his back on me and muttered to his hounds as he headed back to the house.
Mad enough to spit fire, I turned and whistled for Stail. The gelding trotted up to me, and I pulled myself into the saddle. Turning the horse around to take one last look at the house before I rode out to rejoin the caravan, I saw the man hurrying back toward the gate. The dogs both had run to the gate before him, and I took no joy in their eyeing me with their tails wagging.
I assumed he was running to get his dogs, but he held up his hands. “Wait, wait, young Master.”
I hardly felt the desire, but I kept my voice seasonably cordial. “What is it, Goodman?”
“I’d know that whistle anywhere, I would, and the hounds did, too. That’s from Audin to your father to you.” The old man squinted at me. “Sure as the sun rises in the east, you’re Cardew’s son.”
He unlatched the gate and swung it wide open. “Welcome to Herakopolis, Master Lachlan. I trust you will enjoy your stay.”