The Chaos Balance

XXIX

Nylan looked up from the way station’s hearth fire as Ayrlyn slipped inside, bearing Weryl’s damp clothes. She left the sagging door open, mainly for light, since there was but a single window with loose-fitting shutters. Her hands were red from the cold stream water.

The smith extended an arm to bar the silver-haired boy from nearing the few flames that rose from the shavings. “No.”

Weryl looked puzzled, but stopped trying to climb over his father’s limb.

“He understands,” said Ayrlyn.

“He’s too young to understand. I learned that years ago in child psychology.”

“Child psychology? You were an engineer.” Ayrlyn hung the undersquares and Weryl’s trousers and shirt across a low roof brace. “He’s going to need larger clothes before long. These are getting tight.”

“I know. Maybe we can find a tailor or something in Lornth.”

“Ha! People here make children’s clothes.”

“I forget about things like that.” Nylan added more of the pencil wood to the fire, his eyes half on Weryl as he did, but the boy remained on hands and knees, just looking at the small tongues of flame from the shavings that licked at the wood.

“Child psychology?” prompted the healer. “You never answered.”

“Distributional requirements. I wasn’t from the Institute. I had to take courses at the university in something other than power physics. I thought I might have children some day; so child psychology seemed more useful than institutional behavior, sociology of the exotics, or alien metapsychology.” Nylan added another chunk of slightly larger wood to the growing hearth fire, glancing at the two pots that waited.

“Child psychology or not, he understands ‘no.’”

Nylan shrugged, wondering if Weryl were already sensitive to the order fields, if somehow he’d picked up on the emotional energy or disturbance or something associated with negatives. If so, they’d have to be careful, very careful. He wanted to groan again. It seemed like everywhere he turned, he had to be careful.

“Why the groan?”

“Because…if you’re right, and Weryl understands no…” He went on to explain the sensitivity problems.

Ayrlyn bent down, picked up Weryl, and hugged him, then eased him into a more comfortable position. “You have to give him lots of affection. It can’t be false, either, then, because he’ll know the difference.”

The engineer wanted to groan again. He didn’t need a son who was an emotional lie detector. Then, his son hadn’t exactly asked for the talent, and Nylan and Ayrlyn both had some abilities in that direction, as had Istril. Why was every talent a curse as well?

He slipped a larger chunk of wood onto the fire and swung the single bracket that bore both pots over the flames. The wrought iron creaked and wobbled, as if it might pull out of the crudely mortared stones-but it held.

“It will be a while before the stew, such as it is, is ready,” he said absently. “I’m glad you found those wild onions. They’ll help with the seasoning.”

Nylan folded the wax away from the cheese and carefully sliced small slivers so that they dropped onto outer cloth that had covered the wax. When he had a small stack, he offered the first to Weryl, who half-chewed, half-gummed the sliver before swallowing and opening his mouth for more.

“He’s hungry,” affirmed Ayrlyn, after sitting on the hearth stones and holding Weryl so that Nylan could feed him.

“Aren’t we all? That unplanned stop took more food.” The smith offered more cheese and glanced at the fire. “It’s going to be a while.”

“That’s all right. He’s going to need his exercise anyway.”

“At least we’ve been making good time-and only one storm since we left your first hamlet-the one without a name.”

“It has a name. I just never learned it.”

“I’m glad they have some of these way stations. It’s good to have a roof, especially with Weryl, and I get an uneasy feeling when I think about staying in an inn or in some of the towns.”

“The way stations are mostly for traders, I think. Lornth isn’t nearly as well populated as the lands east of the Westhorns, and they need more trade, I’d guess.”

“Wonder if that’s because of the ironwoods. We’ve seen a lot of them.”

Ayrlyn frowned.

“It takes time, good tools, and manpower to clear them. They’re not much good for anything, and some of the bigger ones you couldn’t budge with heavy industrial equipment. That means it’s a slow tedious business-”

“That could be. I don’t know.”

Nylan crumbled more of the hard cheese into little pieces, and tried to coax more of it into Weryl’s mouth. Without milk, trying to balance the nutrients for his son was hard, especially since fruits and vegetables weren’t in season.

“Have you ever wondered why we’re doing this?” Nylan mused. “Here we are, riding almost blindly into a country that was an enemy. If you look at it rationally, it verges on the insane.”

“Yes and no. Was it sane to stay in Westwind?” asked the healer.

“Probably not, given Ryba’s mindset.”

“Would you rather have gone east, into Gallos?”

Nylan grinned wryly. “No.”

“What other direction could we head? Or would you prefer to hide out in the mountains for the rest of what would be quite short lives?”

“When you put it that way, I feel a little better. A little.” Considering that he still hadn’t the faintest idea of what he really wanted to do, except…except what? Survival wasn’t anything except survival, and life had to be more than that. Didn’t it? He shook his head.

Weryl drooled out the last section of cheese, a whitish-yellow mess that oozed across Ayrlyn’s wrist.

“I think he’s had enough.” Ayrlyn eased the child onto the packed clay floor and unstopped a water bottle to wash the small mess from her wrist onto the hearth stones. A sizzle followed when some of the water touched a coal.

Nylan used a stick he had whittled clean to stir the stew, but kept his eyes on Weryl. “It’s still going to be a while. Maybe you could get out the lutar and sing something?”

“Later.” Ayrlyn glanced at Weryl, who was crawling rapidly toward the waystation’s door and the twilight outside. “Later.”

Nylan handed the stirring stick to Ayrlyn and hurried after his son.