Colors of Chaos

LXII

FYDEL AND CAPTAIN Reaz had reined up on the last low rise before the road dipped southward in a gradual slope toward the red walls of Hydolar, circled on three sides by those walls and on the fourth by the River Ohyde. Beside the road, stretching toward the walls, were browned fields, so brown Cerryl couldn’t be certain whether they were grain fields or meadows burned brown by the unseasonably hot sun that had baked the land through the late summer and the past autumn. Only a handful of peasants’ cots were scattered across the fields, marked as much by the taller gray-leaved and wilted trees around them as by the huts’ earth-brick walls and thatched roofs.

Cerryl studied the city’s high stone walls. To the southwest, beyond those walls, the River Ohyde glittered in the late-afternoon winter sun. On the far side of the river Cerryl thought he saw trees, even a patch of woods on a hill, but of that he was uncertain.

“They’ve closed the gates,” observed the captain.

“That’s not terribly welcoming. Do you think they plan to attack if we approach?” asked Fydel.

Reaz shrugged. “I could not say.”

Fydel turned in the saddle and addressed Anya. “Can you and Cerryl cast chaos fire at the gates if they open them to attack?”

“Not from this far. That’s more than a kay from here,” answered the redhead.

Fydel looked at Cerryl.

“Anya’s right. We might be able to loft a few fireballs that far, but it would be hard to hit the gate.”

“Fydel,” Anya said quietly, “it’s not likely that any duke would attack a force of White Lancers unless he had to. Why don’t we ride closer and ask for the return of the healer? Cerryl and I will be ready to cast chaos fire if you need it.” She smiled crookedly.

“We ride on!” called Reaz. “Be ready to lift lances.”

“Ready to lift lances…Ready to lift lances…” The command echoed down the lancers behind Cerryl.

Reaz dropped his hand, and the column started forward again.

Anya edged her mount closer to Cerryl. “Be ready to offer me assistance.”

Cerryl raised his eyebrows. “I thought we were going to request the healer’s return.”

“We are. We also need to show Duke Ferobar that Fairhaven will not be mocked.”

“How?” asked Cerryl, honestly curious as to what the redhead had in mind for humbling the new Duke of Hydlen.

“How might Duke Ferobar feel if the east Tower-there-collapsed?” Anya pointed.

Cerryl followed her finger. “He might send all his lancers after us.”

“He might,” Anya said, with a smile.

“We’re to request the Lady Leyladin first, Anya,” snapped Fydel, again turning in the saddle. “Once we have her, then you two can carry out whatever Jeslek laid upon you.”

“Or…if they won’t release her,” speculated Anya.

“That, too,” grudged Fydel.

Cerryl studied the red walls as they rode closer, noting how the air seemed to waver over the walls in the afternoon sunlight, even though it was cool, almost cold, on the plain outside the city, and how glints of light off helmets reflected from the parapets. Yet his senses told him that but a comparative handful of armsmen manned the ramparts.

Somewhere around two hundred cubits from the closed and iron-banded gates, Reaz and Fydel reined up. Cerryl, his eyes on the fifty-cubit-tall walls, managed to stop the gelding short of crashing into the older mage or swerving into Anya.

“Get the herald,” Fydel ordered.

“Herald!”

A squat figure with close-cropped mud-colored hair and jowls, flowing out of his uniform, answered the summons, reining up beside the captain.

“The mage has a message for you to convey,” said Reaz.

“Yes, ser.”

Fydel rode forward from the others, ever so slightly, and began to talk to the herald, repeating his words time after time.

Shortly, the herald eased his mount away from the column and drew forth a long horn from his lanceholder. He bugled the call. Cerryl winced at the off-key tones but wondered if they would have hurt any less had they been on key.

There was no response from the high walls.

The herald bugled again.

After the third call, a series of notes echoed back.

“On behalf of the High Wizard of Fairhaven, we have come to provide an escort for the healer and Lady Leyladin to return to her home in Fairhaven.” The herald’s clear tones carried toward the walls and the gate.

“Wait,” came back the answer.

Cerryl shifted his weight in the saddle, his eyes on the high red walls, then upon Anya. He was gratified to notice that Anya’s eyes were also upon the walls and that chaos smoldered around her, as if she were uncertain as to what the Hydlenese might do.

“They could refuse to return Leyladin,” he offered, not hoping that, but wanting Anya’s reaction.

“Then, we could bring down all the walls.”

“How?”

“Just help the ground and stone beneath the foundations shift…You can use chaos as if it were butter or a grease, you know. It flows; it’s not stiff like order.”

Cerryl frowned. That made sense, but he hadn’t thought about it in that way-as he hadn’t about so many things, he kept discovering.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Captain Reaz shifting in his saddle. Was the good captain uneasy about what might happen as well?

The cool wind flowed around the mages and the lancers, and the walls remained silent. Not a sound came from the browned fields beside the road, except for the faint whistle of the wind. Cerryl hunched up inside his jacket for a moment.

A triplet of horn notes echoed from the walls, followed by a call: “How would the great Duke Ferobar know that you are what you claim?”

Fydel whispered to the herald, and the man echoed his words: “Who else would bring tenscore White Lancers?”

“Any brigand of means could dress men in white.”

Anya smiled cruelly. “Tell him he shall have his answer in but a few moments.”

“Just splash the gates in chaos fire,” Fydel snapped. “We want the healer first.”

“As you wish.” Anya turned to Cerryl. “Make ready.”

Cerryl nodded and began to raise chaos, careful to keep it around him but well away from his body, easing it from the earth, careful to match what Anya mustered.

“Now!” commanded the redhead.

Cerryl released his chaos fire with Anya’s. The two fireballs arched toward the walls, then merged. A wave of flame splashed and crested nearly to the top of the walls above the closed gates.

As the chaos flame subsided, sections of the gates continued to burn, gray and black smoke rising from the wood into the cool afternoon air. Cerryl could smell the bitter scent of burning wood and chaos and even feel some of the heat, carried on the wind toward them. A patch of dried grass ten cubits or so from the side of the road by the causeway leading to the gate began to burn, then died as the flames consumed the last of the grass.

“Ask them again,” Fydel told the herald.

Sweat dripped from the heavy man’s face as he rode forward once more and bugled, then called, “On behalf of the High Wizard of Fairhaven, we have come to provide an escort for the healer and Lady Leyladin to return to her home in Fairhaven. You have requested proof, and we have provided it!”

No answer came from the walls, save that men began to dash buckets of water from the parapets toward the gates beneath. Slowly, the flames vanished, until only few parts of the gates steamed and smoldered.

After more buckets of water, even the steam and smoke vanished, but the wind carried the smell of wet ash to Cerryl. He shifted his weight once more in the hard saddle.

A trumpet call echoed from the wall. “The Lady Leyladin will join you shortly. Once she reaches you, the hospitality of the duke is withdrawn, and none of the White persuasion are welcome in Hydlen once you depart on your return.”

“What hospitality?” muttered Fydel. He turned to the herald. “Tell them we await the lady healer and will depart only when she is safe with us.”

The herald wiped his brow, then bugled and repeated the message.

“An attack for sure.” Anya turned to Cerryl. “Shortly after Leyladin rides to us. Are you ready to cast fire at the gates when they emerge?”

Nodding, Cerryl blotted his forehead. Suddenly, despite the cool wind from behind him, the sun seemed to burn the back of his neck.

The gates creaked ajar, and a single figure on a black mount rode forth. Cerryl caught his breath, but the blonde hair and the unmistakable sense of order that surrounded her reassured him.

“We need to get her away from the walls,” he said to Fydel.

“We all need to get away from the walls.” The square-bearded mage glanced toward Anya. “You two had better prepare. We are not staying a moment longer than we must. I would rather not rely on chaos fire against the lancers the duke could muster.”

Recalling Fydel’s feeble attempts in Gallos two years earlier, Cerryl could understand the older mage’s concerns. Cerryl glanced at Anya.

“She’s close enough now. Follow me.” Anya’s face seemed unreachable, her eyes glazed over.

Cerryl swallowed and tried to send his own perceptions after Anya’s, following her line of chaos toward the large chunks of bedrock underlying the Tower. How did she know?

Somewhere, he could hear Fydel talking to Captain Reaz and then to the herald. He could also sense the growing order as Leyladin’s mount trotted swiftly toward the lancers.

“Lancers, turn about!”

“…turn about!..Turn about!”

Cerryl could sense how Anya eased chaos in the lines between the rocks and how she concentrated chaos in one rock, shifting it from one to another, and he tried to replicate her actions.

The ground shivered as one soft rock deep beneath the Tower collapsed in upon itself.

Seemingly in the distance, the herald bugled again as Leyladin reached Fydel.

“Lady Leyladin, are you all right?” asked the bearded mage.

“I’m tired and hungry, and worried, but I’m otherwise right.”

After a second triplet, the herald called, his voice not quite shaking, “Remember the might of Fairhaven, and do not think to challenge it again, lest the full might of the High Wizard fall upon you. You have been warned!”

Fydel glanced in Cerryl’s and Anya’s direction.

Cerryl could feel the sweat pouring off his forehead as well as down the back of his neck, could feel the rocks shifting beneath the Tower. Another section of the deeper rock collapsed, but the Tower shivered.

Cerryl thought of water…

What about letting water meet chaos? Even as he channeled more chaos beneath the Tower, he also sought a stream of water, easing it edging from the levels below the rock toward the chaos he built, forcing them together, more and more tightly.

HSSSSttt!! Crumptt! A section of ground exploded out from beneath the base of the Tower walls, and steam sprayed upward, the heat welling even toward the lancers.

“Ride! Let us ride!” ordered Fydel. “Too close.”

The ground shook more violently, then trembled several times more. With a rumble, more stones slid out from the bottom of the Tower. Others seemed to crumble and fragment.

Hot droplets of rain cascaded down around the mages.

Screams that might have been were lost in the roar of falling and grinding stone.

The ground shook yet again.

“That’s enough!” snapped Anya, reeling in her saddle as she wheeled her mount.

Cerryl shook his head.

“Are you all right?” Leyladin eased her mount next to Cerryl’s.

“We must ride!” snapped Fydel.

Cerryl reached for Leyladin’s hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I’m glad to see you.”

“I have to go. I’ll catch up with you later.” If I can.

“Fydel, catch his seeming!” ordered Anya.

Confusion crossed Leyladin’s face as Cerryl thrust the gelding’s reins at the healer and slipped from the saddle.

“Ride with them. You have to go.”

“Healer!” snapped Fydel.

Cerryl staggered to the side of the road, his sight cut off as he lifted his light shields to keep the Hydlenese from seeing him, though a part of his mind pointed out that they wouldn’t see much in all the dust.

Behind him, the thrumming of hoofs faded as Leyladin and the White Lancers rode eastward and back toward Fairhaven.

A few more patters of hot rain dropped around him, and he moistened his lips to try to keep from coughing. Why weren’t there any riders coming after the lancers?

He cast his senses toward the massive gates, then smiled. Anya or he or something they had done had buckled the causeway enough that the gates could only open partway.

The dusty and saddle-sore mage walked slowly toward the gates, placing his feet carefully and using his chaos-order senses to guide him.

As the rumbling of displaced stone had stopped, he could hear screams and moans from the east-from his left. Was toppling the Tower necessary?

He tightened his lips and kept walking toward the gates.

A half-dozen mounts trotted along the road, then reined up.

“Bastards…gone…”

“Not about to chase ’em with half squad.”

“No others…?”

Cerryl eased along the side of the causeway, trying to move silently, not to raise dust with his boots to undo the effect of the light shield, but the attention of the lancers was to the north.

“…stables went…lot of ’em…White demons!”

Cerryl edged around the still-warm wood of the singed gates and along the stones of the archway behind the gates. A dozen armsmen stood at the far end, glancing through the archway toward the lancers on the causeway and then to the east toward the fallen walls and Towers.

Step by unseen step, the young mage eased his way along the stones and toward the open inner gate.

Just short of the gates, he stopped and flattened himself against the wall stones as a clatter of hoofs echoed through the shadowed archway. Another squad of lancers rode past him, the last rider so close he could have touched the mount without stretching.

After another deep breath, he eased along the timbers of the open inner gate and then along the inside of the outer walls for another fifty cubits, where he slumped into a recess formed between two stone columns that provided some additional support to the gates or archway.

For a time he just sat there, unseen behind his light barriers and unseeing, wondering what he was doing in Hydolar. Wasn’t destroying a Tower and killing people enough of a warning?

He took a deep breath.