The Chaos Balance

CXXVII

The stars winked on and off as the clouds slipped across the night sky, covering one unfamiliar point of light and uncovering another, all the time that Nylan and Ayrlyn made their way north along the empty highway. Only the muffled sound of the horses’ hoofs echoed through the night as the four rode closer to the river and the brick bridge.

The smell of the fields, and the faintly acrid odor of something that had been cut drifted across the road on the light breeze.

“The beans, they have harvested,” confirmed Sylenia.

“Wadah…eans?”

“You just had some.” Sylenia turned in the saddle and, twisting her body, offered Weryl the water bottle. He pushed it away, and the nursemaid recorked it and replaced it in the holder without a word.

Nylan doubted he would have been that temperate, son or no son.

When they passed the crossroads where they had confronted the Cyadoran patrol, not even a lingering sign of chaos remained. The engineer glanced around, his ears alert for any noise, but the only sounds were insects, a soft bird call, and the breathing and hoofs of the horses.

As they neared the river, neither Nylan’s eyes nor senses could distinguish any movements on or beyond the bridge, a dark outline above the darker water and against the starry sky.

“Quiet,” murmured the redhead.

The mounts’ hoofs clacked, if not loudly, not softly on the brick pavement of the arched three-piered structure that spanned the deep and smooth-flowing water that appeared black under the cold stars, a blackness darker than the unlit and silent town on the north side.

Infrequently scattered points of reflected starlight dotted the smooth dark surface of the river-wider than Nylan recalled. Even centuries after the Old Rationalist planoforming, the chaotic white-red hints of violence seethed beneath the ground and beneath deep and slow-flowing river waters, the unseenline between what had been and what now was as clear and implacable as ever.

And I…we’re…going to harness that?

“Yes,” answered Ayrlyn.

“I’d better start working out the practical details.” Especially since I haven’t the faintest idea how.

“I have every confidence in you.”

“Thanks.”

Riding two by two between the stone walls, they reached the top of the span, where the echo of hoofs seemed to reverberate into the night. Yet no lights appeared in any buildings on the north side of the bridge.

Downstream, the fractionally darker shadows that were piers loomed above the north side of the water, and a solitary dog barked…and barked. Nylan tried not to stiffen, wondering who would come to investigate, but no lights appeared near the piers and the dog and the clack of hoofs began to echo off the brick buildings once they entered the town proper.

“It’s spooky.” Ayrlyn’s voice was low. “Like the world outside their walls doesn’t exist at night.”

“They have to shut it out,” whispered Nylan, “but that makes it easier for us.”

The open-columned marketplace was empty-yet unbarred and unguarded, and across the street, the water splashed quietly down the sculpted tree fountain, water holding the faintest glow. Some sort of chaos?

“The town still doesn’t smell,” Nylan said.

“You want it to?”

“No. The only thing I’ve been able to smell is harvested beans, and a dampness around the river. No flowers…no garbage…no…nothing…”

“It does seem odd.”

“Better no smell than the smell of Lornth by the old wharfs,” suggested Sylenia dryly.

Nylan wondered. Cyador was clean and ordered, but how high was the price for such cleanliness-and how much force had been required, and still was?

Too much…

But how many people preferred order at any cost?