"That's unreasonable! You could have destroyed the whole Suthyan ship for that extortion." . . . thieves! White-hearted merchants . . .

   Creslin rubs his forehead at the violence of her thoughts, then holds up a hand. "I could have. But that was the only ship arriving in I don't know how many eight-days besides the Griffin. If I ruined her, who else would risk both the White Wizards' anger and mine?"

   "Damn sister dear! Where is her promised support?"

   Creslin waits. It's clear that they cannot count on Ryessa.

   "I know . . . but it's hard. I remember when we played "Hide and Seek" in the courtyards and she promised we'd always be sisters, no matter what happened."

   "You are. She's just doing what she thinks is best for Sarronnyn."

   "Would an occasional cargo of hard cheese or old grain hurt anyone?" Finally she shrugs and sits down next to him. "Before we do this ..."

   "What?"

   Her lips still surprise him as they meet his, but his hands are gentle on her skin. . . . best-beloved . . .

   . '. . Megaera ...

   Later, far later than Creslin had intended, his arms still around her, her scent still around him, he kisses her neck, slowly, then finds her mouth again.

   "Mmmm ..."

   Megaera eases away from him. He lets her go but studies her body, drinking in the fire of her hair, the luminescence of her skin, the fine bones; he marvels again that she is there.

   "You're impossible." Her voice is throaty.

   He listens to every nuance, letting her words die before speaking. "I've always felt this way about you."

   "Not in Sarronnyn."

   "I enjoyed your sense of humor, even when I didn't know who you were."

   She smiles. "That was a big point in your favor." She reaches for the clothes she has discarded. "We, unfortunately, have a job to do."

   ... why?

   "Because . . . well, because-" Megaera blushes. . . . / love you, and . . . "-I wanted you to know that before the real troubles begin."

   "You think it's going to be that bad?"

   "No." Her face is suddenly somber. "It will be worse."

   Creslin shivers despite the heat and reaches for his undergarments. They dress silently.

   "My pallet is bigger," Megaera says as Creslin pulls on his trousers. She blushes again. "That's not ..."

   "I know." He follows her into her room, and they lie down side by side.

   "Hold my hand," she says. "That way ..."... if you need the help ...

   His eyes burn for a moment.

   "Don't get sentimental now," she warns.

   Creslin pushes away the thought and casts his mind toward the high winds of the far north, toward the nodes of those winds, toward the patterns that rule the world's rains.

   The high winds, the great winds, are like rivers of steel, throwing Creslin back toward the south, shaking his senses as a waterspout smashes a ship. He can scarcely sense where he is, tossed and tumbled as he is above the northern seas.

   . . . little changes . . .

   The warmth that comes with the thought is enough, and he no longer seeks to bend those high, steel torrents; instead, he looks inside, behind, with a nudge here-

   -and there . . .

   -and there.

   The winds twist, howl silently, and lash at the changes and the makers of those changes. Winds the world over shiver and wail as the high winds shift.

   At last Creslin returns to Reduce . . . and he lapses into a stupor that is half-sleep, half-coma. Twilight is almost night when he wakes, lifts his head, and puts it down with a gasp.

   . . . Creslin . . .

   He squeezes her hand silently, holding himself motionless lest he trigger another stab of pain.

   Later yet, he turns.

   Megaera's eyes are open. "Are you all right?"

   He rubs his forehead. "Yes, I think so." His neck is sore.

   "So is mine."

   After a moment, he adds, "Thank you. It wouldn't . . . have worked . . . without you."

   Her hand reaches for his, and they lie together in the darkness, hearing the distant wail of the high winds, listening to the shifting storms . . . and dreading the deaths to come.

 

 

CXI

 

"HE'S DONE SOMETHING," observes the young-faced White Wizard. "I felt it."

   "Who didn't?" Hartor ponders for a moment. "It wasn't just Creslin. There was a certain . . . delicacy . . . there. Not the kind of brute force-"

   "There was plenty of force. Enough to shift the winds in their courses."

   Hartor rubs his square jaw with his thumb. "I don't like the feel of it. There was more there than a wind shift."

   "You're right. But it plays into your hands."

   "So tell me, good Gyretis." Hartor glances at the blank mirror on the table.

   "What's Creslin's biggest problem?"

   Hartor waves at the young wizard. "Stop the guessing games. Just tell me and be done with it."

   Gyretis shrugs. "Food and water. He's not wealthy. We shut off Korweil's coins, and even Westwind isn't sending a lot of either coin or supplies. Reduce is already too dry, and he just couldn't wait any longer."

   "Great . . ."

   "It is. You've already observed that the summer has been dry. What happens when there are no rains in Montgren? Or when the summer rains don't reach the fields of Kyphros? Or the Westhorns, and Westwind, are no longer buried in snow rods deep for most of the year?"

   "It's going to change a lot of things."

   "Exactly. I think that now is the time to let all Candar know, quietly of course, that those renegade Blacks on Reduce are going to starve thousands."

   "We can't exactly post signs or hire criers to shout the story on every comer," snorts Hartor.

   "Rumor is more effective, and more believable." Hartor smiles. "So we tell a few people, carefully chosen, and insist that they keep it quiet?" Gyretis nods. "And then we make a few more plans ..."

 

 

CXII

 

CRESLIN STANDS ON the hill crest, at the top of the narrow road he hopes someday will be a grand highway, looking northward beyond the harbor, looking out over the northern waters.

   Megaera stands at his shoulder. Both still wear their exercise clothes: sleeveless tunic, trousers, and boots. Both sweat in the late-afternoon heat.

   Behind them, the stonework continues on the small structure that will be a stable. Unlike the holding itself, Creslin has not touched a single stone for the stable, leaving that work to the Hamorians, most of whom no longer even regard themselves as prisoners.

   Creslin wipes the perspiration off his forehead. But the dampness returns almost as quickly as it is removed, despite the dry air around them.

   "I think I can feel it," Megaera offers.

   Creslin nods, his senses halfway out to the winds, out toward the dark clouds that roll toward Reduce from the northwest.

   Directly beyond the harbor, the ocean is flat, a prairie of sullen green swells that barely move. Farther north, white-caps are forming under the wind that precedes the storms. The horizon is dark with clouds, low and roiling.

   Barely audible, distant thunder whispers southward toward the couple on the hill's crest.

   . . . mighty storm . . . best-beloved . . .

   "You were there. Nothing else worked." He pauses. "If it's too much, maybe we can work with Klerris to shift some of the winds."

   "Don't do anything yet. The patterns have to sort themselves out first."

   "How long will it take?"

   "Two or three eight-days."

   "Well," he laughs. "We could probably use that much rain. It's been dry for too long."

   "You might regret those words."

   "I might. Let's walk back."

   Turning away, they stride through the heat toward the cooler walls of the Black Holding, past the unfinished walls of the stable, ignoring the sound of steel on stone and waiting for the promised coolness of the storms to come.

 

 

CXIII

 

HE WAVES TO Narran. "Over here!" The rain seeps through Creslin's hair and down his neck as he levers the heavy stone into place.

   While the foundation of the wall has been replaced, doing so has required carrying rougher boulders from the hillside, since some of the original stones have been buried in mud and clay or carried so far downhill that finding them, let alone retrieving them, is an impossibility.

   Narran staggers through the mud with another boulder. .

   "There." Creslin points.

   Into the gap in the wall goes the stone, and the wiry trooper turns back uphill.

   Heading toward the rocky hillside from which the water pours, Creslin steps over the diversion ditch that he, Narran, and Perrta have completed to keep the runoff from again undercutting the wall.

   Carrying a stone on each hip, the stocky Perrta passes Creslin without speaking. A gust of wind whips the trooper's oiled-leather parka half open, and he twists as if to keep the jacket from being blown off his back.

   Following Narran, Creslin plods toward the rocky outcropping another fifty cubits uphill, his boots squelching through the red mud that had been unyielding clay less than an eight-day earlier.

   Creslin retrieves two boulders, squarish but smaller than those lugged earlier by Perrta, and carries them through the mud to the wall, where he wedges them into place, adjusting one of the stones brought by Narran.

   Another trip and the last gap in the upper field wall-and the cause of further field erosion-has been repaired.

   "That's it. Let's head back."

   Narran glances from Creslin to the gray rain clouds and back. Creslin ignores the look and steps eastward toward the path that winds down to the keep. Rain continues to soak his short hair and to dribble inside his jacket and tunic. Too tired to redirect it away from himself, he methodically puts one foot in front of the other until he is within the keep.

   "You look like something dragged from a swamp." Hyel tosses a ragged towel at Creslin. "Did you have to handle the repairs personally?"

   "Yes. I caused this mess, remember? If I just sent people out, how would they take it?"

   "They'd do it."

   Creslin wipes his face and hands. "I'm heading back to the holding. There's not much more that has to be done, and besides, I'm not up to stonework in both the rain and the dark."

   "No one asked you to do it in the rain." Shierra steps into the room that she and Hyel have come to share as joint commanders of the small, would-be army of Reduce.

   "You sound like Megaera."

   Shierra laughs. "At least you listen to her."

   "I didn't want the fields we still have to be washed away in the rain. Why is that so hard to understand?"

   Hyel and Shierra exchange glances. "Well . . ."begins the brown-haired man, "it's just that you ask so much of yourself. If you occasionally asked, rather than led by grueling example . . . anyway, would you think about it?"

   Shierra nods.

   "Since you two seem to agree, I guess I do have to think about it." He folds the towel and lays it on the clammy stone of the windowsill. "And I'm going home."

   Hyel and Shierra look at each other again. Shierra suppresses a smile.

   With his muscles aching and his damp clothes cool on his body, Creslin sees no humor in the situation. "I'll see you tomorrow."

   "Vola is saddled and ready," Shierra adds, stepping farther into the room and beside Hyel.

   "Thank you." Creslin nods and departs.

   A young black-haired guard turns over the black's reins to Creslin. "Good evening, Regent Creslin."

   "Good evening."

   Outside the stable, the rain pelts at him more heavily than earlier, although the water feels somewhat warmer. The road from the keep is firm as far as the upper end of Land's End, where he reaches the muddy way uphill to the holding and the drainage ditch that has become a fast-flowing stream.

   Spewing toward the town below, the miniature torrent beside the road has deepened from a mere depression into a jagged cut two cubits wide and nearly as deep. Ignoring the water that now flows from his hair across his face and down his neck, Creslin nudges the mare toward the Black Holding.

   Even his oiled jacket is sodden by the time he ducks under the still-green wooden beam framing the doorway. Although Klerris had order-strengthened the wood, some of the green timber will shrink and crack. But there is neither time nor coin for seasoned woods.

   Outside, the water continues to cascade from the dark gray clouds. Dismounting, Creslin pulls off the oiled-leather jacket and hangs it over a stall wall. Vola shakes, and water sprays across him.

   "... getting to you ..." He loosens the saddle, removes and racks it, and reaches for the brush.

   "Why?" he asks himself. Why does his meddling with the weather always yield such absolute results? Reduce scarcely needs all the rain it has had in the last eight-day. "... tried to be careful . . ."he mutters.

   He brushes the mare, casting his senses beyond the stable. Megaera, Aldonya, and Lynnya are in the kitchen, as well as someone else: Lydya. For a moment, blackness wavers before him, and he reaches out and touches the wall to steady himself. Then he resumes his currying.

   Finally he puts up the brush, adds some grain to the feed trough, and closes the stall door. After picking up his leather jacket, he walks out of the stable and along the slippery black stones of the walkway and into the front entryway. He stamps his feet, trying to remove excess water and mud.

   The jacket goes on a peg in the open closet, next to Megaera's jacket, also damp. A small puddle remains on the stone floor underneath. After looking at his sodden boots, he pulls them off, nearly crashing into the wall twice. Then, barefoot, he pads across the Great Room and into the warm kitchen. "Greetings."

   "Greetings, Creslin." Standing at one side of the small but heavy stone oven that Aldonya has obtained from somewhere, Lydya holds a steaming cup in both hands. Megaera cradles Lynnya, while Aldonya is slicing long green roots.

   "Quilla again?"

   "It is good for you. Even great wizards need to eat all the right foods." Aldonya gestures with the knife.

   "You'd rather have the seaweed?" Megaera shifts Lynnya to her shoulder, patting the infant on the back as she does.

   "If I have to choose between . . . between chewy roots and soggy ..." Creslin shakes his head. "Anyway, I'm outnumbered."

   "You just noticed, best-beloved?"

   Creslin looks past Megaera and through the window to the darkness from which the rain continues to pour. Then he searches for a cup. "Do you think this is in time to save the orchards?"

   "Pearapples can stand a lot of dry weather." Lydya takes a sip from her mug."

   "Why don't you just sit down?" Megaera prods.

   Creslin does, grateful for once for the warmth around him.

 

 

CXIV

 

THE MARSHALL READS the scroll upon the desk, then glances at the window, not even frosted over though it is early fall; in most years, the glass frosts well before the gathering in of the sheep and the reckonings of the winter stocks. She looks from the clear blue morning outside back to the scroll bearing the royal Suthyan seal over the signature of Weindre, Governess of Suthya. She picks up the document again. Finally she stands and walks to the door of her study.

   "Get me the Marshalle and Aemris."

   One of the guards departs.

   The Marshall re-reads the scroll, frowns, and waits. Her eyes drift to the unseasonable warmth outside the gray granite walls. In time, she looks up to see Llyse and Aemris in the doorway.

   She thrusts the scroll at Llyse. "Read this and tell me what you think."

   They wait while Llyse reads the ornate lettering.

   "It's a proposal to negotiate a permanent agreement for the use of the guards. Seems about standard. That business about the weather, though, is strange."

   "Why? The weather is changing, at least for now."

   "Do you really believe that rumor?"

   The Marshall snorts. "Do you believe that Creslin destroyed a bandit troop single-handedly? Or that he sank an entire Hamorian fleet?"

   "The bandit troop? He could have," offers Aemris.

   "The ships? Yes." Both Llyse and Aemris speak simultaneously, then look at each other.

   The Marshall takes back the scroll. "This is almost a veiled ultimatum. They're saying that Creslin-'your consort'-has created the disruptions that require greater protection of harvests and storehouses in the border regions between Sarronnyn and Analeria and Southwind, and they want us as the buffer. They'll pay us, of course."

   "But not handsomely," comments Llyse.

   "Well enough for us to go there and talk about it."

   A moment of silence falls on the stone-walled room.

   "I don't like it, but this summer's been as lean as any we've seen, and the winter doesn't look to be much better. And Weindre had something to do with the losses we took at Southwind."

   "Why are you leaving the detachment there, then?"

   "Do we have any better source of funds . . . now?"

   Llyse shakes her head. "I don't like it."

   "Neither do I. That's another reason to go to Suthya, with Heldra-"

   "Heldra?"

   The Marshall looks at Aemris. "Because, if anything happens to me-the Legend forbid-Llyse and Westwind will need you."

   Llyse swallows. "Couldn't someone else go?"

   "Weindre wouldn't talk to anyone else." Dylyss lifts the scroll. "That's clear enough."

 

 

CXV

 

"I TRIED TO be careful, and Megaera helped, but there's still too much rain headed this way."

   "It's like . . . like cabinetry. You need a delicate but firm touch, and a lot of practice." Klerris looks out at the drizzle and draws his cloak closer.

   "Fine, but we have more rain than we need, and half of Candar is ready to blow away. And the fishermen are complaining that there isn't enough sunlight to dry their catch. Not to mention the time we've spent repairing walls and keeping fields from being washed away. We've already lost a lot of the maize . . . just washed out." Creslin shakes his head in exasperation. "But I don't want to go back to where we started, or worse."

   "Then it's going to take time."

   "We don't have time. Rather, I'm not sure that Candar has time. According to Freigr, a lot of the meadows in Montgren have actually caught fire."

   "That doesn't make sense. Peasants don't set their fields ablaze, and there haven't been any thunderstorms since you- Oh . .

   "I'm sure they're blaming us. Me, actually. Or me and some renegade Blacks like you and Lydya."

   "Patience would have helped, you know."

   "I'm tired of hearing about patience, or time. I've never been allowed the luxury of either. Heaven knows I tried. We diverted water, and the streams dried up. I went out and found water-three springs in the hills beyond the fields. Fine. Two of them dried up within an eight-day. I spent half a day every day for eight-days on end desalting seawater, and it wasn't enough. If I hadn't changed the weather, half of the keep would be dying or dead, and everyone would be blaming me for that."

   "That's an exaggeration."

   "I don't think so." Creslin pauses to see if his stomach corrects him. It does not.

   "You could be honestly mistaken. Being order-tied only means that you can't intentionally lie, not that you're infallible when you tell what you think is the truth." Klerris turns from the rain. "In any case, you've already changed the weather. Let's go in by the fire. I'll tell you what I know, and then we'll see what we can do."

   Creslin lingers for a moment in the welcome coolness on the porch before following Klerris into the almost uncomfortable warmth of the cot's main room.

 

 

CXVI

 

"THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG here, Heldra." The Marshall pauses and adjusts her formal sword-belt, then steps briskly along the corridor toward the doorway of the grand dining hall.

   "Couldn't it just be from the weather and the lost harvests?"

   "Creslin is making things hard on everyone, us included." A low half-laugh follows. "Poor harvests mean less trade, and less money to pay for guards. Weindre talks about more money, but Suthya hasn't laid any coin on the table."

   "They've always been tight."

   "How well we know." The Marshall breaks off as she nears the entrance. Two guards and a page await them.

   "The Marshall of Westwind! All hail the Marshall!" The page's voice is thin but clear and piercing.

   The Marshall steps through the tapestried archway and up toward the dais, Heldra close behind her, when a second page steps forward and murmurs a word to the training master, who pauses. Two paces, then three, open between the two women.

   Hsttt . . . thunnk . . . thunk . . .

   The crossbow quarrels sleet from the corner of the banquet hall like the briefest of thundershowers.

   Heldra falls under the first of the quarrels, her body pitching on the polished stone floor.

   "Darkness ..."

   The black-clad Marshall staggers before her legs buckle under her.

   "Get the healer! Now!"

   The Westwind guard in charge of the ceremonial squad ignores the cries and gestures toward the corner. The Suthyan nobility dive away from the grim faces and bare steel.

   The guards charge the stairs, ignoring the crossbows dropped behind the stone-walled balcony normally reserved for the Suthyan house guards. The blond guard pushes them onward, toward the palace gates.

   On the dais, the lone healer checks one body, then another, pausing at a third before shaking her head.

   The Marshall lies facedown, three quarrels through her back and chest. Below her, Heldra's body bears but a pair, one through the neck.

 

 

CXVII

 

MEGAERA CUTS, DRIVING aside the other's blade. The guard staggers from the impact of the hard wooden rod.

   "Good!" Shierra glances from the guard to the regent. "But you're still not recovering after the thrust. You're not fighting a duel. You leave the blade down like that and you'll be congratulating yourself while taking a gut shot. Get the blade back up. As for you, Pietra, you're holding the blade too low." Shierra steps forward and adjusts the angle of the wooden weapon. "Like this. You have it here, and you see how she beat past you?"

   Pietra nods.

   Megaera nods as well, finding her hand automatically repositioning her wand. Then she shakes her head and lowers it before wiping her forehead, damp from both the drizzle and her sweat. "That's all for now."

   "Thank you, your grace." Pietra nods again.

   "Thank you."

   Megaera returns the wand to the rack, reclaims her blade, and walks quickly to the keep.

 

 

CXVIII

 

CRESLIN SITS IN the wooden chair that he has adopted for his vigils on the winds and casts his thoughts out to the west, toward Candar and Montgren. As usual since he has begun his vigils, there are no fleets in the waters around Reduce, only fishing boats and a three-masted bark headed back in the direction of Nordla.

   The weather mage sends his perceptions across the winds to the west, toward the clear skies and drying lands, toward the unseen white miasma that cloaks both Fairhaven and Montgren.

   Smoke puffs rise from valley after valley as tinder-dry meadows burn. Yet there are no soldiers in Montgren, only tiny points of whiteness that flicker in and out of existence. And none of those points of light appear near Vergren.

   The soldiers will come later, much later.

   Creslin stands and walks out of the study, down the short hall, onto the terrace, and into the cold mist that blankets the afternoon.

   Megaera is at the keep, finishing her blade practice. That he can sense. Should he see her first, or Klerris?

   After strapping on his short sword, he looks for Aldonya, but she and Lynnya are not in the holding. He debates walking and decides that Vola would be quicker, even with time taken to saddle her. Besides the mount needs the exercise.

   Vola's strides are quick and sure, each hoof leaving its mark in the damp red clay of the road with each step northward to the black-stoned keep that may represent the hope of order.

   The hope of order? Pushing away the self-importance of the thought, he hurries through the cool dampness of the day. Overhead, gray clouds shift, but only a fine mist shrouds the town and harbor. The fishing boats are out, leaving only the Dawnstar and the waterlogged boat that never moves. Creslin reminds himself that he should do something about the abandoned boat.

   Megaera stands in the doorway to the keep. Her lips are tight. "Have you looked at what we've wrought, best-beloved? Really looked?" Her face is pale, almost blank compared to the inner turmoil that tears at her.

   "Should I?" He shakes his head at the flippant comment that was meant to disguise his feelings.

   "Should you!" Then her voice drops, as she senses his pain and his reaction to her anguish. "I'm sorry. I didn't understand what you meant."

   Creslin forces a smile. "I just meant-"

   "I know."

   "-that I didn't want to hurt you more."

   "I'm stronger than that." She lifts a wrist, where a white scar remains. "And I want you to see and feel the chaos that you can create with pure order."

   "That's why I came. I already have seen it. The wizards are burning Montgren." Megaera raises her eyebrows. . . . expected any less? "No. They're setting hundreds of little fires in dry fields, meadows, houses," he tells her.

   "Anyone who can tell the difference would be identified as a Black mage, right?" she asks.

   "Clever of them. I either change the weather back and bring on storms that will flatten and swamp anything that's unburned, or Montgren burns."

   "Would you? Change the weather back?"

   "I've been working with Klerris to make a new pattern, one with less rain here, more in Candar, but not as much as before. If I try to put out the fires ... I don't think it will work." The cold steadiness of his stomach chills him as much as it confirms to both of them the truth of his statement . . . unless he is honestly mistaken, and that possibility worries him as well. Klerris is right, honesty is not infallibility.

   Megaera looks at him. "They must have been waiting. They would have found some way to get at cousin dear."

   "I expect so." Creslin is not thinking of Korweil but of Andre the shepherd and of his daughter Mathilde, who had insisted that Creslin was a "good master."

   "That doesn't make it easier," she adds. . . . so much death . . .

   "No. I'll talk to Klerris, but I wanted you to know."'He has to ignore her feelings about death. "What are you working on? Right now, I mean."

   "Besides riding the winds to look at Montgren? Besides watching the wizards use you to destroy Montgren? A trading plan for the Dawnstar."

   "Perhaps the maiden voyage should be to the east, or as far west as Suthya."

   "Suthya was the plan. How do we know that the Nordlans or the Hamorians wouldn't just seize her? In Candar, at least, they fear you. Even Fairhaven will grant you that."

   Has it come so quickly to this? That for Reduce to endure, he must be even more greatly feared than the White Wizards?

   Megaera's smile is faint, but she reaches out and squeezes his hand. "We still need to finish the trading plan. Lydya has some ideas of what can be gathered. There's a shellfish that makes a purple dye-"

   "The trading plan . . . first. I still need to talk to Klerris."

 

 

CXIX

 

A SLOOP WITH tattered sails beats northeast from Tyrhavven, trying to clear Cape Kherra before the war schooner, farther offshore, can intercept her.

   Even with his senses so extended, Creslin can feel the whiteness of the war schooner, and he knows that there are but a handful of sloops that would risk the heavy seas. He shivers in his chair, nearly breaking his concentration, aware that he must do something to help the Griffin. He has never tried to focus the powers of the storms or winds at such a distance.

   Recalling what Klerris mentioned about technique, he searches and searches . . . until he finds the gaps in the winds. While he cannot precisely judge distances with his mind, the wind sheers are close enough, for the schooner has not yet neared the Griffin. Creslin nudges, almost persuades, a further shift in the sheers, and withdraws.

   He is gasping, nearly drained, his mind blank. Shortly he rises and walks to the kitchen, where he finds some cheese. He cuts a slab of black bread and trims the mold from it. Flour is in short enough supply as it is, and the continuing dampness is causing all the bread to mold. He rewraps the loaf and takes a bite of the bread and cheese.

   He can see the changes that he and Klerris have worked on, but once again, doing things delicately takes time, and the excess of moisture will not disappear immediately.

   The pearapples, at least, have recovered and retained what fruit remains, and the spice crops are promising, except for the dark pepper. He takes another bite of bread and cheese.

   "You must be hungry, your grace, to eat that." Aldonya stands in the doorway, carrying an openweave basket from which the odor of seaweed and fish emerge. On her back, Lynnya sleeps.

   Creslin's mouth is full, and he shrugs, then swallows. "Sometimes the weather's hard work, Aldonya." He looks at the basket. "Fish tonight?"

   "There's precious little else, your grace."

   "Sorry." He takes another bite of bread and cheese, trying to ignore the taste of the bread. Lydya insists that the mold is not harmful, but the flavor is terrible. Still, he has bread, unlike most of those on Reduce. "Will her grace be here for dinner?" "I think so. Excuse me." Creslin remembers that he still has some work to do with the winds if the Griffin is to escape the Fairhaven schooner. Aldonya shakes her head. "Mmmmm . . ." Lynnya burbles. Creslin smiles at the red-haired baby, but the smile fades as he reseats himself in the study, where he looks out the open windows to the cloud-swirled north.

   The white war schooner has almost reached the Griffin by the time Creslin casts his senses to the winds and relocates the sloop. He edges the sheer between the two ships and watches the distance open between them as the schooner plows into a welter of chop and swirling head winds, while the Griffin clears the cape full before the wind.

   Klerris and Megaera were right-again. If he can only plan ahead and use time to his advantage, even more is possible. He frowns. His success with the sloop ignores the chaos from which the Griffin flees.

   Once again he quests toward Montgren, but he can sense nothing through the cloud of dense and dull whiteness that lies across the land. Fragments of fire, fear, and sickness escape the white gloom like arrows released at random. Vergren itself, Korweil's stronghold, smolders, but whether the fire is real or magic, Creslin cannot say. Nor, he suspects, does it matter.

   When he stands, his head again is splitting, and at first he must steady himself on the chair. Not all of the pain is his, and he wonders if Megaera knows what he has discovered.

   "Are you all right, your grace?" Aldonya stands in the doorway.

   "No, but it will pass."

   "Her grace is heading up the road, and I thought you might like to know." She departs. Lynnya is no longer with her, but sleeping in her cradle.

   Creslin steps toward the terrace, where, for the moment, it is not raining. The late-afternoon clouds have thinned to a mere haze, and he eases himself onto the stone ledge.

   Both the faint thud of hooves on the damp clay and the warmth that is Megaera flow toward him in the dampness before the twilight. He rises and walks toward the stable.

   Vola lifts her head and whinnies as Creslin steps forward. He is uncertain of whether he should offer Megaera comfort or whether he is the one who needs the comfort.

   "Does it matter?" Megaera offers him a lopsided smile and dismounts.

   They hold each other, she still with the reins in her hands. Then she breaks away. "You're going to have to let me go, or I won't be responsible for the consequences."

   He blushes. "I'll take care of Kasma."

   "Thank you."

   As Megaera scurries for the Jakes, Creslin leads Kasma into her stall and begins to unsaddle her. Then he racks the saddle and removes the bridle. When he finishes, he walks around the holding to the terrace, where Megaera waits for him on the ledge, her trousered legs hanging over the edge above the slope leading to the cliff.

   "Thank you again," she says.

   He shrugs, seating himself next to her. "What does Shierra think?"

   "She's worried, but Lydya thinks that the rain was soon enough for most of the pearapples to have some fruit, and the grasses on the plateau are already coming back. We can start grazing the horses there again in a day or so."

   "But?"

   "There still won't be enough food to get us through the winter, with nothing coming from Montgren."

   "I'm sorry about Korweil . . ." "Best-beloved, there wasn't much we could have changed."

   He squeezes her hand. "If I'd only known more earlier."

   "That's the story of life." She brushes a stray hair out of her eyes.

   "The Griffin's on the way. How Freigr got her clear, I don't know."

   "You had something to do with that. I felt it."

   "Oh, getting her away from the White war schooner, yes," Creslin agrees. "But how he managed to set sail-that took some doing. He'll have some supplies, knowing Freigr."

   "Anything will help."

   For a time, they sit quietly.

   "Does Lydya know anything more about . . . about the Marshall?" asks Creslin.

   "No. Just that Llyse has taken over. The traders didn't know anymore than that Westwind has a new Marshall."

   "I should have felt . . . something."

   Megaera touches his hand. "She didn't want you to be that close."

   He looks into the darkness of the Eastern Ocean.

   "But . . . something . . . ?" Mist settles on them, the faintest of drizzles as the overcast darkens into twilight.

   "Dinner will be late," Megaera says.

   "I suspected that. Lynnya was giving Aldonya fits."

   "I offered to fix it, but Aldonya insisted that it was her job." Megaera smiles. "She threw me out."

   "She does have definite ideas."

   "So do you." She squeezes his hand for a moment.

   Creslin's thoughts are still on the whiteness that blankets Montgren, and he returns the gesture absently. Megaera withdraws her hand but does not move, and the misty drizzle continues to bathe them.

   "While we're waiting, could you ... a song would be nice if ..."

   He clears his throat, moistens his lips, swallows.

   . . . high upon highland, the brightest of days,

   I thought of my lover, and his warm, loving ways . . .

   The notes are cold copper, and his guts twist within him. He breaks off. "I don't . . . somehow ..."

   Her hand touches his. "Sorry. I didn't mean ..."

   "That's all right."

   But the song that would not sing worries at him, and they are both glad when Aldonya appears in the doorway.

   "You two will become sick, sitting there in the darkness and the rain. And how will the rest of us fare with our regents ill? Your dinner is ready." She gestures with a large wooden spoon, jabbing it at them as if it were a blade. "Come on."

   Creslin and Megaera exchange grins as they turn and rise to walk across the terrace.

 

 

CXX

 

CRESLIN'S WHITE-OAK wand flashes, moving like the lightning that he has often called from the skies, and strikes.

   "Oooff ..." Shierra staggers back.

   "Blackness," mumbles Hyel. "Are you all right?"

   "I will be." She rubs her shoulder. "You're fast, Creslin. And strong. I could see the opening, but I couldn't get the wand there quick enough."

   "I was lucky." Creslin sets his wand aside.

   Shierra smiles, a smile that recalls Westwind and a kiss on the stones outside the Black Tower from another guard. "No. Luck has nothing to do with it. Your technique is sloppy around the edges, but unless you run into someone a lot faster, it won't matter. Or-"

   "Unless I'm fighting more than one person," finishes Creslin. "That's what happened with the Hamorians."

   "There's not much I can do about that, unless you want to try taking on two at once."

   Creslin laughs. "How about you and Hyel?"

   "Not now." She rubs her shoulder again. "I'm going to have the devil's bruise there anyway. Besides, it's starting to rain harder."

   "Has it ever stopped?" Hyel glances up, and then at Creslin.

   "I'm working on it. We just have to be careful." He grins ruefully. "Haven't you noticed that it doesn't pour any longer?"

   "We only have endless mist." Hyel's tone is dour. "I think I liked the heat better."

   Shierra completes racking the wand. Her eyes flash from Hyel to Creslin, and she smiles broadly.

   "You two," complains Hyel. "You're from the coldest spot in the world, and you've got no sympathy for anyone who likes heat."

   "It's not that bad, dear man," Shierra says with a smile.

   Hyel blushes.

   Creslin looks away, but he is pleased. "The Griffin will be landing in a bit. Are you coming?"

   "Is there any need to? Won't Freigr be staying for a while?"

   "This time ... yes. He's likely to be here for some time, in fact."

   "Is it that bad?" Shierra slips into the shoulder harness bearing her blade. "Already?"

   "Sooner than I thought," admits Creslin.

   "It's certain, then, about the Duke?"

   "Nothing's certain, but I think so."

   "Why didn't he come here to Reduce?"

   "Vergren was his life." Creslin picks up his harness. The hilt of his short sword is cold to his touch, colder even than the mist that falls. "How could he give it up?"

   "I don't know." Hyel looks down at the stones of the courtyard. "I used to think I understood things. Now-"

   "It's not that bad," interrupts Shierra.

   "I don't know," repeats Hyel, mechanically racking the practice wand and readjusting his sword-belt.

   "I'll talk to you later," Creslin tells them, "after I see what shape Freigr and the Griffin are in. Don't forget to send a squad and some carts for off-loading."

   "They'll be there."

   Leaving Vola in the keeps' stable, Creslin stretches his legs toward the harbor and the expanded cot that has become Megaera's glassworks.

   His eyes study the harbor, but he does not see the white sails of the approaching Griffin; only the Dawnstar and the sunken fishing boat are in view. He shakes his head. He had meant to discuss the relic with Shierra and Hyel. Sooner or later they will need the pier space.

   Creslin stops outside the rough, clay-brick walls of the glassworks, then steps through the open doorway.

   Her face smudged, Megaera does not look up from the stone-topped table where she studies a translucent blob. Beside the blob is a glass goblet, one of the products of her work with Avalari, an apprentice glassblower before his impression into the Hamorian fleet. Apprentice or not, the goblets are good, and in time their production will provide another trade item, assuming that Reduce lasts that long.

   Megaera looks up at Creslin and smiles.

   "You're not coming, are you?" he asks.

   "What good would it do? You can deal with Freigr, and I'll see you both later."

   He steps around the table, hoping for at least a quick kiss.

   "You ..."... impossible . . . oversexed . . .

   He gets both the kiss and a full-bodied hug that leave his heart racing.

   "Creslin ..."

   "I know." Another squeeze and a kiss and he is out into the gray afternoon. Before he has cleared the doorway, she is back at work with the mixtures of sand and chemicals that Klerris has laboriously provided.

   As he reaches the foot of the pier, Creslin glances toward the point of white, still perhaps two kays seaward of the breakwater, barely visible through the haze that will again become drizzle.

   He walks out on the pier, looking at the nearly refitted Dawnstar. Without Lydya's ability to mend wood, or Klerris's art of strengthening the timbers, rebuilding the Hamorian ship would not have been possible, not in just one summer. He smiles, though the smile fades quickly, for the Dawnstar still lacks adequate sails.

   So they have waited for Freigr and the Griffin . . . and waited. It has been only three days since Creslin rescued her from the Fairhaven war schooner. Now he waits to confirm what he suspects but what the white mists have kept him from learning.

   Montgren is quiet now, the whiteness subsided, but there are troops from Jellico, and even from Hydlen, camped throughout the gentle valleys that had once held little more than sheep. And Vergren alone still seethes with white.

   In time, the sloop wallows up to the pier, half of her sails already furled by the time she passes the breakwater. By then, a group of guards and troopers has arrived and reported to Creslin. They stand a pace or so behind the silent regent.

   As the lines are made firm and the gangway eased into place, Freigr finally looks out at the guards on the pier, then at Creslin. The captain's hair that had been sandy and silver is now mostly silver, and the clean-shaven chin is covered with a short and scruffy beard.

   The Griffin, up close, bears its own scars: gouges in the once-smooth railings, patches on the single sail still unfurled, and an unseen and lingering sense of chaos.

   As soon as lines are secured and the gangway settled, Creslin is across and onto the deck, where Freigr meets him, garbed in the green-and-gold surcoat worn over a graying black sweater. The crew, almost as scruffy as the captain, looks away from Creslin.

   "That was your doing? To the war schooner, I mean?"

   Creslin nods.

   The flint-gray eyes are bloodshot. "I can't say that I want to be here, Creslin. Or should I say, Duke Creslin? Or will your co-regent wear the coronet?"

   "I would claim no title, Freigr."

   "No, you wouldn't. That I know. But can you afford not to?"

   "How did it happen?"

   Freigr shakes his head. "Who knows? Was it the plague? Or an assassin? All I know is that people were dying, mobs running through the streets threatening to stone anyone who was connected with the Black Wizards, and the messengers said that the keep had fallen to the mob."

   "I take it that the White Wizards sent in the troops to restore order?"

   "How-"

   "I could see the troops after the magic cleared, but not how they got there. The keep itself is still clouded in White magic."

   "It was magic?"

   "Chaos magic of some sort. You can't use order-mastery for that."

   "But they said that it was all your fault, changing the weather."

   "The weather, yes." Creslin sighs. He glances again at the battered Griffin. "And I suppose the disasters that followed are my fault, although I didn't cause them."

   "Cause . . . who can say?" Freigr looks at Creslin, the bloodshot eyes still flint-hard. "What do we do now?"

   "You're welcome to become the flagship of Reduce."

   "Do we have much choice?"

   "No. You could command the Dawnstar." Creslin points to the nearly bare-masted ship across the pier.

   "You've done a lot with her. We've got the sails. Plus some extra canvas. And as many provisions as we could bring." The seaman gestures at the barrels lashed across the forecastle, then pauses. "I'll have to think about it. Might be better to have Gossel as her master."

   "It's your choice. Gossel could replace you here."

   Freigr looks at the keep on the hill. "I don't know. I knew it was a bad omen, bringing three friggin' wizards here. Just didn't know how bad."

   Creslin sees a woman peering from the hatchway leading to the mess.

   Freigr's eyes follow his. "Synder's sister. Couldn't have more bad luck, so I let those who wanted to bring their women, sisters, whatever, do so. I figured you wouldn't mind, and I couldn't have done less."

   "We're a bit crowded, but that's the best news you've brought." Creslin looks to the northern skies and the patches of blue between the puffy clouds. "That and the weather."

   "I was glad for the rain."

   "We've had a bit much, but I hope we've fixed that."

 

 

CXXI

 

THE SILVER-HAIRED woman looks from the singer back to the guard commander on her right. She ignores Krynalleen, the thin-faced arms-master who sits on her left.

   "I don't like it, your grace," Aemris says.»"The Tyrant didn't rebuild Nonotrer . . . before. Now there's even less of a threat."

   "We should attack them? After losing two squads in Suthya?" Llyse sips from the black goblet. "And nearly another to the Analerian bandits? We're being bled dry."

   "I never said that. But it bothers me."

   "It bothers me, too. And that business of the footprints. There's at least a squad of invisible warriors somewhere above the high road."

   "It bothers us all," puts in Krynalleen. "White devils."

   "Wizards' business," snaps Aemris. "I've doubled the outriders. They can't spend the winter up here, not once the snows are deep. Then we'll get them."

   "We don't have that much here to get anyone," Llyse comments, "not with the Sarronnese commitment. Not with the losses we took to Southwind. I'm not renewing-"

   "You don't trust the Tyrant?"

   "Trusting a woman who would abandon her own sister to the White devils isn't exactly the smartest thing to do. If we weren't so short of hard coin ..."

   "You did send supplies to the consort," Aemris reminds her.

   Llyse's eyes flare, but her voice remains level. "Those were things we couldn't turn into coin and couldn't use." She pauses. "Anyway, see me in the morning."

   Aemris looks toward the singer at the cleared end of the dais.

   "The man song . . . the man song . . ." cries a guard from the middle tables.

   With a shrug toward the high table, the minstrel slips off the stool, sets down the guitar, and opens the pack behind him. After a moment, he withdraws an object that he unfolds into a long fan shaped as a sword. With a bow, he begins.

 

   Ask not what a man is,

   that he scramble after flattery as he can . . .

   . . . after all, he is but a man ...

 

   As he sings, the minstrel, dressed in shimmering, skintight tan trousers and a green silksheen shirt, prances toward the high table, thrusting the fan suggestively.

   "... and, after all, he is but a man!"

   The minstrel bows, accepting the applause, before setting aside the comic fan and recovering his guitar. A single whistle lingers after the clapping dies away. He sits down on the stool, adjusts the tuning pegs, and lets his fingers caress the strings. Finally he clears his throat softly.

 

   . . . and in the summer, and under the trees,

   my love will lift you across the farthest seas . . .

 

   The applause is scattered, and he smiles wryly before adjusting the guitar again and beginning a march. Immediately the younger guards pick up the rhythm with their clapping.

 

   . . . honor bright, honor bright . . .

   . . . from the mountain's height . . .

 

   After two more similar songs, the minstrel slides off the stool, holds up his hands, and bows. While the clapping fades, he sets aside his guitar and rummages in his pack for a moment before retrieving a package-almost a half a cubit on a side-that he carries toward the high table and the new Marshall.

   Llyse stands for the minstrel. "It is good to see you again, Rokelle of Hydlen."

   "I am honored, your grace." The figure is still slender, the voice still youthful, though the brown hair has thinned and the gray at his temples is more pronounced. The once-fine lines radiating from the flat brown eyes are heavier and deeper. "Especially that you would recall a mere traveling singer."

   "Those who sing are always welcome." Her eyes narrow, but she steps forward.

   "A token for you, Marshall of Westwind." The minstrel's voice is curiously dull behind the mellow tones as he holds the cloth-covered object as if to extend it to her.

   "A rather large token." Llyse raises her eyebrows.

   The minstrel inclines his head. "I thought you might find it of interest." Easing his burden onto the table, he lifts the cloth.

   "Oh . . ."

   Aemris leans forward. On the table is a model of Westwind itself, its heavy walls and towers captured in metal, except that in the central courtyard there is a large candle.

   "If you will permit me . . ." The minstrel uses a sliver of wood to transfer the flame from the table lamp to the candle.

   In the glow from the taper, the small castle seems to glitter, though the walls are clearly solid, if somewhat sketchily etched in the hammered metal.

   "Tin?" asks Aemris.

   "Alas, Guard Commander, I do not know. The space between the metal is filled with a plaster, I think." He laughs, an empty sound. "I could not have carried this were it solid metal." He coughs and looks toward the pitcher on the table.

   "Your pardon, Rokelle. You entertain us and bring a gift, and we keep you standing and thirsty." Llyse nods, and the serving boy pours a goblet and sets it before the empty chair between the guard commander and the arms-master. "Please join us."

   "I would indeed be honored." He eases himself into the chair and reaches for the goblet. "Singing's a thirsty business even when you're appreciated."

   Llyse frowns again, and her eyes flicker from the minstrel to the candle-lit model of Westwind and back to the minstrel. "What news might you bring?"

   "There is always news, your grace. Where might I begin? Perhaps with the Black Wizards ..."

   . . . sssss ...

   Llyse's eyes turn to the candle within the miniature castle; it flares brighter and hisses before subsiding.

   "... say the fires that are sweeping Montgren come from the renegade Blacks of Reduce, though that I would not know . . . and the orchards of Kyphros are dying, Weindre's daughter has pledged fealty to the Tyrant."

   "We'd heard that."

   Rokelle takes a deep pull from the goblet before continuing. "The Whites have pledged to aid both Hydlen and Kyphros."

   "I wonder how much it will cost us all," murmurs Krynalleen into her goblet.

   Llyse's brow remains knotted, although her eyes stay on the minstrel. Her lips purse, and she clears her throat, as if to speak.

   CrracccKKK!

   A flare of fire, like the impact of lightning, shatters the table and throws instantly charred bodies across the hall, flattening the guards at the lower tables.

   Even before the echo has died, another gout of white fire flares across the Great Hall, turning the two tables holding the senior guards into another instant bonfire. In the wavering heat, a hooded figure is outlined momentarily before beginning to fade.

   A single blond guard sees the fire that issues from the near-invisible hooded figure, and almost faster than thought, she draws and throws her cold iron blade.

   "Ooofff . . ."

   Another smaller fire flares.

   Overhead, the roof creaks as two beams smolder, and from the distance, the sound of blade against blade echoes in the late-summer evening.

   The blond guard retrieves a blade from an unmoving figure. "Quarters! Quarters, damn you!"

   Tra-tra!

   The watch trumpet echoes from the Black Tower, even as a healer's face turns white over the four crumpled and blackened figures on the dais, even as the blond warrior rallies the remaining guards.

 

 

CXXII

 

CRESLIN CRUNCHES THROUGH the crisp green root on his plate, swallowing the last hard bits. "It's really not bad."

   "Not if you like edible shells. You must have teeth like iron." A pair of quilla roots remains on Megaera's plate.

   "You should eat them, your grace." Aldonya peers from the kitchen at the redhead. "They help keep the skin soft and clear."

   "I've done well enough so far in life."

   "They are tasty," Creslin adds.

   "Stop it. Both of you. I'm not going to eat the rest of them, and nothing you say will change that," Megaera protests.

   "Nothing?"

   "Wait until she carries a child, your grace. Then listen to what she says."

   "Stop it, you two," Megaera orders again. "I refuse to eat something that sounds like shells when you chew it and tastes like the proverbial wizard's brews."

   "If you say-" A white, soundless thunderbolt flares within Creslin's brain, and he shudders, putting both hands on the table to steady himself. He shudders again, looking at nothing.

   . . . best-beloved . . . Megaera has turned faintly green. "What ..."

   The white emptiness turns within him, and he knows. How he knows, he does not know. But the awful sureness of the knowledge cuts like the dullest of swords.

   "Llyse . . ."He shakes his head, and his eyes burn. "Llyse." Slowly he pushes back his chair and stands, almost unseeing as he walks toward the door to the terrace and the mist that is not quite heavy enough to fall like rain.

   Megaera follows, and Aldonya watches for a moment, until the redhead has left the dining room. Then she shakes her head. "Wizards ... but still, they should eat." She begins to gather the remnants of the dinner that will not be completed, her ears alert for the sound of a child who is due to wake.

   Outside, Megaera stands beside Creslin and slips her hand around his. For the first time she can remember, his fingers are colder than hers.

   "She's dead."

   "Do you know what happened?"

   "Just that she's gone."

   "Do you ..."

   "White . . . it's all white. They're both gone. Gone." Creslin's eyes are dry, dry like the desert, like Reduce before the rains, and his guts are lead-tight and heavy within him.

   She takes both of his hands.

   "That's another I owe them," he says.

   "You can't look at it like that."

   "Probably not, but I do." . . . Llyse . . . Llyse . . . He wishes that tears would come, but his eyes are dry and they ache, and his hands are cold in Megaera's.

   As the mist chills the terrace, as the swells of the Eastern Ocean wash upon the sands below, the warmth flows from her hands into his.

 

 

CXXIII

 

"At LEAST WESTWIND'S no longer a problem." Hartor fingers the chain around his neck, his eyes darting to the mirror.

   "Was it worth it? They still managed to get Jeick, and you had to sacrifice your tame minstrel. That doesn't even count the men the remaining guards slaughtered," Gyretis points out.

   "That leaves Creslin with no support from Candar. Ryessa won't support her sister. Montgren is ours, and Westwind's deserted." The High Wizard smiles tightly.

   "What about the guards? There are still three squads and their kept men and children marching across the West-horns."

   "Three squads? With camp followers? Let them march. What can they do? Where can they go?"

   "To Recluce, I'd guess. You've probably given Creslin the beginnings of an army even more dangerous than the guards . . . and bearing even more hatred."

   "We destroyed the guards, Gyretis."

   The thin wizard purses his lips. "I think you went too far. Ryessa will probably regarrison Westwind, and I'd rather have had a young Marshall there than Ryessa. The remaining guards, assuming they reach Recluce, would join the ancient devils to strike back at you."

   "Not if they starve first. Creslin can't feed what he's got, and he doesn't have ships, tools, money, or weapons. What can he do? Create a few more storms? What good will that do?"

   "I don't know. But Jenred thought he had everything figured out, too." Gyretis shakes his head. "There must be something about that amulet."

   "What did you say?"

   "Nothing." The young White Wizard smiles sadly. "Nothing."

 

 

CXXIV

 

VOLA'S HOOVES CLICK on the newly-laid entrance road to the keep, another project of the Hamorian stone workers. Despite the lack of coin, they keep working. Is life in Hamor that bad?

   Creslin glances to the row of narrow and unfinished stone cots below the road. Despite the still-falling mist, the stone-workers' hammers rise and fall, and their apprentices mix the crude mortar developed by Klerris from shells and sand and who knows what else. The next line of cots is theoretically for the consorts of both guards and troopers, though there are no consorts for the male troopers . . . yet. But the cots will ease the crowding in the keep.

   Outside the stone bungalow that was once a cot and now hosts the two Black mages, Creslin dismounts and ties Vola loosely to the hitching rail he installed.

   The neighboring cot, once deserted, boasts a new slate roof and glazed windows to shelter two stoneworkers who have already announced plans to find wives and stay on Recluce.

   "... more faith than I have, sometimes . . ." Creslin mutters to himself.

   He walks to the doorway.

   "Come out on the porch. Lydya's down at the inn." Klerris's voice carries from the porch.

   Creslin shuts the door behind him and joins the Black mage. "I see that the stoneworkers have been busy." He gestures at the glistening slate roof of the nearest cot.

   "They're going to build a place off the piers. A warehouse, they said."

   "What?"

   Klerris grins. "They have faith. Yord-he's the grizzled one-says that once you win, everyone will want to start trading and he'll be able to charge top gold for a ready trading office."

   "Win? I can't even pay for supplies. The Duke's dead. The Marshall and Llyse are scarcely cold in the ground, and I still can't get the weather right."

   "You're certain Korweil's dead?"

   "Aren't you?"

   Klerris sips from a tumbler of water and says nothing.

   "We almost lost everything to the heat and drought, and now we're about to lose what's left to the rain, unless this works out." Creslin shakes his head. "Light! I can't even sing anymore." He pauses. "Why would I have trouble singing?"

   "I know order, Creslin, not music." Klerris finishes the tumbler of water and sets it on the table before walking to the front of the porch.

   "I don't think it's the music. I think it's me."

   "I wouldn't be surprised." The Black mage does not face the regent. "Are either you or Megaera going to claim the title?"

   "Korweil's? I certainly don't plan to. I'm not even related. I haven't mentioned it to Megaera."

   "You haven't-" Klerris shakes his head. "Sometimes you two amaze me. You share minds, almost, yet the most obvious issues-"

   "We didn't discuss it, I think because we feel the same way. At least I think we do."

   "Assuming the obvious can lead to trouble."

   "Tell me about it." Creslin sets himself on the back half-wall of the porch. "But I don't intend to be a pretend duke of a Duchy swallowed by Fairhaven."

   "It would make your claim here stronger."

   Creslin snorts. "One way or another, it won't come to that."

   "You're probably right. Who could contest you two?"

   "Enough of titles that don't matter. I asked you about my trouble with singing. You said that you wouldn't be surprised at it." Creslin's eyes narrow.

   "Why not?"

   "I'd say that you're off balance. You've used order too creatively, and you're probably thinking of doing even worse."

   "Worse?"

   "Listen to your own words. You don't have enough coinage. You can expect no aid from Montgren or Westwind, and you don't want to count on Ryessa. Just what are you considering?"

   "Nothing . . . Yet."

   "Creslin, even you cannot go around evading the order-chaos balance forever. You're going to 'pay in one way or another. The fact that you have trouble with your music indicates that something's wrong."

   "What am I supposed to do? Let everyone starve in an orderly fashion?"

   "I told you in the beginning that I don't have all the answers. You asked me what I thought the problem was. I told you. You're the one who doesn't like the answer." Klerris's eyes are level with Creslin's.

   "It's not a pleasant answer. You're saying that I have to choose between order and letting people starve."

   "I said nothing of the sort. I said that you've been using order too dangerously. And the number of souls you've dispatched with that blade hasn't helped either." Klerris shrugs. "I understand your frustration. That's one reason the Blacks have nowhere to go. We can't handle that kind of conflict very well."

   Creslin bounds to his feet. "Darkness! Just what I need. Now that I'm halfway there, you're saying that there's nothing you can do. If I use any more order, I'm courting danger. If I use my blade, that's dangerous. Just how am I supposed to get us out of this mess?"

   "Preferably without more killing and violence," answers the mage dryly. "Me included."

   "Sorry."

   "You're not sorry. You're still angry at me because I don't have any magical answers. There aren't any."

   Creslin understands that Klerris is telling the truth as he sees it, and his guts turn as he considers the mage. Finally he continues. "I came about the weather-"

   "I don't think we need to do any more. Those last adjustments to the northern mid-winds seem to be holding . You'd know better than I would, of course."

   "They're holding."

   "We should have more sunny days as the summer ends."

   "What about ..."

   Although they talk further about the weather, Creslin's stomach still churns, and his head aches when he leaves the cot.

   Astride Vola and heading to meet Megaera at the public room of the inn, he surveys Land's End.

   The keep is three times the size it had been when they arrived. All of the abandoned cots have been occupied and repaired, and several larger dwellings are being erected, although their construction-requiring stone, crude plaster, and pine timbers from the small stands of old pine nearly ten kays south-takes more time than it would in Montgren.

   At the pier rides the Dawnstar, her canvas finally in place. Freigr has said that the ship will sail in the next day or so. The Griffin has already left for Renklaar, where Gosssel claims to have both cargo and customers for the small load of spices.

   With a last look at the pier, Creslin vaults from the saddle and leads Vola into the covered shed that serves as a stable for the public room. He marches from the stable and through the drizzle to the doorway of the inn.

   Megaera has risen from a conversation with a guard to meet him. "You're angry. I could feel you coming."

   "You're right. I am."

   "What did Klerris say to upset you?"

   "Let's sit down and I'll tell you."

 

   . . . if he had a mule, he'd give it to a fool,

   and if he had a knife, she'd not be his wife!

 

   The troopers and guards clustered around the circular table laugh as the thin guard strikes the final chord. Several of them glance up as Creslin and Megaera seat themselves at a smaller table near the kitchen.

   "Something to drink, your graces?"

   The serving woman's polished tone tells Creslin how far the tavern has come. "What is there?"

   "Black lightning, wine, hard mead, and green juice."

   "Green juice?" asks Megaera.

   "It comes from wild green berries on the cliffs. It's very sour, but some folks like it."

   "Green juice," Creslin says.

   Megaera suppresses a smile and nods. "I'll try it, tart as it may be."

   "Thank you, your graces."

   "You're implying that I'm attracted to tartness?" Creslin asks.

   "It seems to have a fascination for most men," Megaera observes.

   He shakes his head, but he cannot hold back the twist to his lips.

   Megaera's hand squeezes his, then releases it. "The public house was a good idea."

   "One of those few that worked almost from the start."

   "You did provide a little . . . help."

   "There are times I wish I'd sung to someone else before then."

   "Times?"

   "All the time," Creslin admits. He takes a deep breath.

   "You're still angry."

   "I can't help it. Klerris gave me a lecture about my creative avoidance of the order-chaos balance-"

   "Oh."

   "I know. You've worried about it for a long time, but I kept asking for help. And he didn't have any ideas, except the same old bit about patience. What are we supposed to do? Let everyone starve? Beg the Whites to take us back? Eat quilla roots until we've uprooted every cactus on Reduce?"

   Megaera grins briefly.

   "It's all well and good to preach about absolute order, but it doesn't feed people, or pay for tools and weapons."

   "That's why we're regents, best-loved." There is no irony in her voice.

   Creslin turns and looks into her green eyes.

   "Do you think your mother wanted to send you out alone?" She asks. "Or that Ryessa really liked putting me in irons?"

   "I thought you hated her for that."

   "I did. I do. Not for doing it, but for not caring. She felt that she had no choice, but she could have cared."

   "Oh . . ."

   "You see?"

   Creslin sees, sees that he must do what he must, sees that he must never hide the pain from himself ... or damn others for having no answers. Megaera's hand touches his briefly.

   Creslin looks up at the guard on the stool as she eases into another song.

 

   . . . holding to the blade,

   a-holding to the blade,

   He used it like a spade,

   A-holding to the blade . . .

 

   Although the notes are not quite silver, her voice is pleasant enough. Yet each note jars in Creslin's ears, echoes off-key through his skull.

   "Are you all right? Megaera asks.

   "I thought I was, but the singing ..."

   "Her notes are honest."

   "I know."

   Clunk.

   Two heavy tumblers are set on the table by the serving woman, who does not even pause as she heads for the circular table around which nearly ten men and women sit. All of them are from the keep.

   "We really need to think about some sort of common uniform,"Creslin muses.

   "That can wait."

   "I know. I know." He takes a small sip of the nearly clear liquid.

   "Oooo ..." His lips pucker.

   Megaera grins. "It can't be that tart."

   "Try it."

   He waits until her lips twist. "It can't be that tart," he echoes.

   "Are you going to drink the rest of it?"

   "Of course. We males have a fondness for tartness."

   Megaera elbows him.

   "Ooofff ..."

   "I still haven't forgotten." He shakes his head, squinting, but the notes from the singer remain coppered silver, although honest. Yet the falseness echoes through his head. "Do you feel it?"

   "Just through you."

   They sip the green juice gingerly, listening to the singer.

   In time, the guard strums a last chord, stands, and walks toward Creslin. She holds out the guitar. "Would you like to sing, your grace?"

   Creslin smiles faintly. "I feel honored, but unfortunately I cannot. Not tonight. I wish I could." He does not know which is more disturbing-her look of disappointment or the calmness in his guts that indicates he is not lying to himself.

   "Perhaps another time?"

   "I would like that, but it may be a while."

   The guard looks from Creslin to Megaera. The two women's eyes meet before the guard nods. "We all would like to hear you again . . . when it is possible, your grace."

   "Thank you." Creslin's sip of the tart green juice turns into a gulp.

   "Do you know what it is?" Megaera asks after the guard has returned to a table.

   "Why the notes bother me? Klerris has to be right. But exactly how? No. My order balance is off."

   "I gathered that."

   "I just don't know. I haven't done much of anything lately, except to watch from the winds, and that shouldn't be a problem." He takes another sip and stares out through the cloudy glass of the window into the blackness of the night. "I just don't know."

   He takes one more sip, the bitterness passing his lips and throat unnoticed. Megaera leaves her juice nearly untouched.

   Another singer takes the guitar.

 

   . . . the Duke he went a-hunting,

   a-hunting he did go . . ."

 

   Creslin waits through the song, sipping juice, his eyes focused somewhere beyond the night. Finally he turns to Megaera. "It's time to go." Silently she rises with him.

 

 

CXXV

 

WITH A SINGLE sail in place, the Sligan coaster edges through the heavy chop and past the breakwater. A crewman on the bowsprit tosses a light line to one of the guards standing pier watch by the deep-water bollard.

   Below the Sligan ensign there flies another banner, one of crossed black and silver lightnings on the azure.

   Why would a Sligan coaster be flying the Westwind banner? Creslin is practically running down the hill road now, his steps dodging the deeper puddles as he dashes through the light rain. He can think of only one answer, and it is not one he wishes to face.

   Behind him, Hyel and Shierra exchange glances. "You'd better let Megaera know."

   "She'll already know that he's upset," Shierra observes.

   "But not necessarily why."

   "You're right. We're going to have more guards, though. That's for certain."

   "More-"

   "Don't groan so loudly."

   Hyel grins. "Are you coming?"

   "I might as well."

   They follow Creslin's steps in time to catch up with him before the coaster is fully secured at the deep-water end of the pier.

   "Do you want to explain?" asks Hyel as he steps up beside Creslin.

   Creslin points to the deck, where Westwind guards stand in loose order.

   "I still-" Hyel begins.

   "I see what you mean," interjects Shierra. "I hope they aren't all that's left."

   "You think that's what it means?" Hyel asks Creslin.

   "The Marshall's dead. Llyse is dead, and Ryessa has been moving troops eastward into the Westhorns. If Westwind still existed, there wouldn't be three squads coming to Reduce." Creslin's words are hard, solid.

   The coaster is made fast as her heavyset captain gestures silent orders to a quick-moving crew. Several men glance sideways at the guards, moving around them as necessary.

   As the gangway is swung into the stones, a blond guard marches down the planks. She steps past Hyel and halts before Shierra. "Squad Leader Fiera reporting."

   The hardness of her voice tears at Creslin, and he swallows, waiting.

   "Report." Shierra's voice is as hard as her sister's.

   "Three full squads. Also ten walking wounded, five permanently disabled, and twenty consorts and children. Three deaths since embarkation in Rulyarth. We also bring some supplies, weapons, and tools . . . and what is left of the Westwind treasury."

   "Report accepted, Squad Leader." Shierra turns. "May I present you to Regent Creslin? Squad Leader Fiera."

   Creslin nods solemnly. "Honor bright, Squad Leader. You have paid a great price, and great is the honor you bestow upon us through your presence. Few have paid a higher price than you." He hates the formality of his speech but can offer her nothing besides the ritual, nothing to compare to her travails. At the same time, he remembers a single kiss beneath the tower called Black, and he swallows, for he knows one reason why he now possesses the guards and the Westwind treasury.

   "Will you accept the presentation of your heritage, your grace? For you are all that remains of the glory and power of Westwind."

   "I can do no less, and I will accept it in the spirit in which it is offered." His eyes meet hers, and he lowers his voice. "But never would I have wished this. Even long ago, I wished otherwise." That is as much as he dares to voice on the pier, but it must be said.

   "We know that, your grace." Fiera swallows. "By your leave, Regent?" Her face is tear-streaked.

   "The keep is yours Squad Leader, as is all that we have. We are in your debt, in the angels, and in the Legend's."

   "And we in yours, Regent." Tears continue to seep from the young, hard face, but the voice is like granite.

   "Form up! On the pier!" snaps Shierra, her voice carrying to the coaster.

   The guards file off the battered and damp-decked ship; the drizzle continues to blanket both ship and pier.

   "What was all that about?" whispers Hyel to Creslin.

   Creslin swallows and blots his forehead, and eyes, with the back of his hand. Finally he steps back to the other side of the pier, away from where Fiera and Shierra preside over the disembarkation of the Westwind guards. Hyel follows him.

   For a time, Creslin looks out at the ocean, struggling to regain his composure. "That's . . . they're ... all that's left ..."

   "Of what?" Hyel queries.

   "Of Westwind." Creslin turns abruptly and steps back beside the two sisters, watching as the guards disembark and the crew begins the off-loading.

   Several carts roll toward the pier, their passage clearly organized by Megaera, who will-must, unhappily- understand the lead in his heart.

 

 

CXXVI

 

SITTING IN THE wooden armchair with its back to the pair of bunks, Creslin studies the parchment sheets; Gossel studies Creslin; Megaera looks at neither.

   Finally Creslin lifts his eyes. "You need ten golds. That's what you spent over the loss allowance."

   "The ten golds-they aren't that important." Gossel clears his throat. "The holds were nearly always full. Most of the time, break-even is around half-full."

   Creslin pushes the chair back and stands, ducking at the last minute to clear the low timber bracing the cabin's ceiling. "You brought back more than expected. And the lot of oak seedlings . . . Lydya is more than pleased with that."

   "And I appreciate the cobalt," Megaera adds.

   Gossel looks down at the inlaid crest on the table, the crest of a duchy that exists only in memory. "It isn't going to work, ser. Begging your pardon, it won't. Not unless things change." He takes a draft from the smudged goblet, then pours from the cloudy glass bottle that is from Megaera's glassworks.

   "You seem to have thought this out." Megaera's voice is gentle. "Why do you feel that way?"

   "It's like this, your grace. I know the traders, like the Ruziosis . . . Klyen and I served under his uncle. That was before Freigr offered me the number-one and when the Duke was talking about building a real merchant fleet. Anyways, Klyen middled for me in Renklaar-just this one time-because the Whites hadn't put out the word, but the declaration came out just after we loaded on everything but the trees. My boys had to load those themselves, even had to clean the pier, because it's like the theft decree-"

   "Theft decree?"

   Gossel glances at Megaera. "Lift a hand to help Reduce, like a thief, and you lose that hand. Doesn't matter what's right, but Klyen can't help again, leastwise not in Renklaar or anywhere east of the Westhorns. As for Nordla, the Griffin's a good ship, but small to cross the entire Eastern Ocean, and ..."

   "How could we guarantee any protection?"

   Gossel takes another sip from the goblet.

   "So ... we have to go at least as far as Southwind or Suthya to trade? Is that it?" asks Megaera.

   "Yes, your grace. I don't know as that'd work . . . maybe for the Dawnstar. Freigr's got enough hold for the bulk stuff." Gossel takes another swallow from the goblet. "See, everyone wants the expensive stuff, but there's not much of it, and you try to sell it all at once and then the price drops. But ships come only every so often. That's how the trading houses work. They stock the spices and silks and jewels, but they sell only a bit at a time. Keeps the price up that way. With the decree, only the smugglers'd touch our stuff, and their rates are much lower . . . wouldn't even cover our costs."

   "We didn't lose that much," Creslin points out.

   "One ship in three is lost every couple of years."

   "You're saying that we can trade for a little while, even through the smugglers, but that it will raise costs-"

   "A lot. Do that, and you have to pay the crew bonus money. You also need to ship marines or some sort of guards. Otherwise, smugglers'll just take you, ship and all."

   Creslin shakes his head. "Clever of the Whites. Just punish anyone who takes our goods. That kills legal trade, and the economics kill most of the smuggled stuff."

   "I don't see why. Smuggling's been around for centuries," protests Megaera.

   "What's smuggled, your grace? Weapons, drugs, jewels. Maybe art for a patron in Austra who isn't too picky, or sometimes some brandy or whiskey-distilled stuff, you know. We're buying weapons, and we don't have jewels, let alone art." Gossel lifts the goblet. "Now, if you could make a brandy out of this green-juice wine or whatever it is. But ..." he shrugs ... "we don't have much of the stuff the smugglers want."

   "I see," Megaera says pensively.

   Creslin sees too. "Let us think about it." He stands, reaching for his too-empty purse.

   "No, ser. The coins are nothing. You made me a ship's master, and that's worth more than a few golds." Gossel squares his shoulders.

   "That's why you're worried?" Megaera asks softly.

   "Aye, your grace. The Griffin, small as she is-"

   "We'll see what we can do." Megaera's eyes reach Creslin's, but only for a moment, as his anger and frustration wash over her. She stands up.

   Gossel's head is down and he remains seated, still looking at the table, almost unaware that both regents are ready to leave.

   "We will do something, Gossel." Creslin pauses. "And we appreciate the honesty and the fair warning."

   They leave the cabin without further words. Gossel corks the bottle and racks it, then downs the last of the goblet.

   As they cross the deck, Megaera looks at Creslin. "Why are you so angry? We've got trading crops. We'll even have some wool, and Avalari is beginning to turn out some decent goblets and other fancy glassware. Now that we can color some of it, it should sell well, certainly in Suthya, and perhaps even in South Kyphros. They don't pay much attention to the Whites there."

   Creslin nods to the mate supervising the deck work, and both he and Megaera are rewarded with a casual salute. "Good day, your graces."

   "Good day."

   "Good day."

   Creslin grins at their simultaneous responses, then so- bers. "Fine, you're producing splendid goblets, and most of the fall spice crop will survive. We send it south and we get half of what it's worth. We try to send it east, and what's to keep the Hamorians from seizing the Dawnstar? It was theirs once, after all."

   "You think they would?"

   "I don't know. Can we afford to risk it now? We can last for a while, even though losing a few golds, as long as we get the goods . . . and as long as we don't lose a ship. Or too many crops. Or get too many more refugees." Creslin's footsteps echo on the stones of the pier.

   "Did what Fiera brought help?" Megaera brushes her hair back over her right ear.

   Creslin laughs harshly. "Help? We'd be at the edge without that chest. But what other miracles can we expect? And at what price?" He shakes his head. "She's sharp, sharper in some ways than Shierra."

   "Oh . . .is that because you once loved her?" Megaera looks at the open window of the public room as they walk toward the stable, where Vola and Kasma wait.

   "Some jealousy there? At least she has brains, unlike that perfumed fop Dreric."

   "Best-beloved, I know what you felt toward Fiera. How could I not ... on the pier?"

   The combination of pain and anger stills his tongue more than the coldness of her words. "I'm sorry. It still hurts. She gave us everything, and . . . what can I return?"

   "She knows that. And you did give her something. Everyone saw the grief and lost love on your face there on the pier. In time, that will help."

   Their feet echo on the stones leading to the Inn stable.

   "What I meant was that she saw, right at the time, that Westwind was doomed, and she moved everything she could." Creslin turns toward the stable door.

   "Was it truly doomed?"

   "Yes. What was left in the treasury, after they chartered the coaster and paid for all the cargo they brought wouldn't have been enough for the winter supplies. The Whites also killed most of the sheep, and you can't rebuild flocks in a year, the way you can with a bad field crop." He pauses in the open stable door.

   "Sometimes ..."

   "Sometimes what?"

   "Nothing." Megaera steps toward the stall and Kasma.

   Creslin leads out the black and swings into the saddle. He does not need to wait, for Megaera has matched his actions, and they ride toward the keep.

   His eyes traverse the town. Three or four more houses have sprung up on the hillside below the keep, and the warehouse promised by the two stonemasons rises perhaps two hundred cubits east of the inn.

   At times, Land's End almost resembles a town.

 

 

CXXVII

 

"HALLO!" CRESLIN'S VOICE echoes through the still-empty public room.

   "Hold to! Hold to!" grumbles a voice.

   Despite the emptiness, the tables are clean and the stone floor has been freshly swept. Chairs and benches stand ready for the customers that the afternoon will bring, for there are no ships in the harbor, and no one from the town or the keep has time to while away in the earlier part of the day.

   "We're not open-oh, your grace." The narrow-faced woman inclines her head to him.

   "I know. I need to buy a bottle of that green-juice wine."

   "That . . . ? Green juice?"

   Creslin can't help smiling. "I want to see what can be done with it. The tartness has possibilities, I'm told."

   "That swill? There be no understanding tastes, your grace." The woman turns back into the kitchen with an iron key in her hand. "Be just a moment, your grace." After the rasping release of a heavy lock, a clanking of bottles, and the re locking of the storeroom, she returns and thrusts two bottles at him. "Two'd be strong enough for any lightning spell."

   "Too strong, I suspect. What do I owe you?"

   "Not a copper, your grace. Can't be charging the owner, now can we?"

   "Thank you."

   The woman is still shaking her head as Creslin departs.

   Outside, he places a bottle in each empty saddlebag, then mounts and turns Vola toward the Black Holding.

   The clouds to the east have begun to part, revealing clean, blue-green sky, almost as crystal as that viewed from the Roof of the World. Creslin swallows and continues uphill.

   The holding is empty. He supposes that Aldonya and Lynnya are buying yet more fish for dinner and that Megaera is at the glassworks.

   Once in the study, Creslin opens one of the bottles and pours the contents into four tumblers. After studying the first tumbler, he concentrates. Half of the liquid vanishes, and there is a small puddle on the stone floor.

   "Oh . . . clean that up later," he mumbles. He sniffs the remainder of the liquid in the tumbler. "Not that much different." With even the smallest of sips, his eyes water at the sour bite of the distilled green-juice wine. "Whuuu ..."

   He tries again, with the second tumbler, and with the third and fourth. Then he walks out of the study and into the sunlight on the terrace. Some of the stones are still damp from the night's mists, but the heat of the early fall sun promises to dry them before long.

   A raw alcoholic beverage he does have, but not one that most would drink, let alone pay for. Where does he go now? Aging is almost a function of chaos, not of order.

   Below the terrace, the waves sweep across the beach at the base of the cliff, polishing the sands with their ceaseless ebb and flow.

   Polishing? Creslin walks swiftly back into the study, where he concentrates on both order-distilling and polishing.

   He pours the liquid from the tumblers back into the bottle. Perhaps two thirds of the bottle is filled with a translucent green fluid.

   He resaddles Vola, and the single bottle goes back into a saddlebag, to be taken to the keep. Along the way, he makes several quick stops, arranging for a meeting.

   Later, in the early afternoon, Shierra, Lydya, Megaera, Klerris, and Hyel sit around the table in the keep.

   "You wanted us here," Megaera says. For what . . . best-beloved?

   Creslin pours a small quantity from the bottle into several goblets and presses a goblet upon each. "Just taste this . . . carefully."

   Megaera raises an eyebrow at her husband. Hyel frowns. Shierra looks from Hyel to Megaera. Lydya keeps her mouth still, but her eyes twinkle, while Klerris lifts his goblet without comment.

   "... strong."

   "Pretty good . . . tangy."

   "Smooth and bitter ..."

   "Decent brandy ..."

   "What is it?"

   Creslin waits until the five have finished. "Polished green-juice brandy."

   "I suspected so." Lydya nods.

   "What have you got in mind?" Hyel asks.

   "The other day there was something Gossel said," Creslin muses. "He was explaining that smugglers trade only certain things, like weapons, jewels, and distilled spirits. Then he sort of half-muttered that the green juice ought to make a decent brandy. So I tried it."

   "Do you think we could make money on it?" Lydya asks.

   "I don't know. But there are a lot of berries on the western cliffs. They grow anywhere, and it wouldn't take much effort to find out. The glassworks already makes some bottles. Would a colored one be much trouble?" He looks at Megaera.

   "No. But would anyone buy it?"

   Hyel laughs. "It's better than most of the good stuff out there. But you'd have to make a lot."

   "Anyone mind if I try?"

   "Hardly," Megaera finally says. "It is order-based and constructive."

   Creslin swallows the implied reprimand.

   "Is that all? asks Shierra.

   "That's all."

   Creslin watches for a moment as they look at each other, then turns and leaves, walking slowly down the stairs to the main floor, and out toward the stable.

   Megaera catches up with him. "I'm sorry."

   "It was stupid. I just thought it was a good idea."

   "It is. It's simply that ... I mean, how can we produce enough?"

   "I should have thought about that. Fine. Say I can come up with a hundred bottles before winter, and that's a lot. Assume that they're good enough to fetch a silver apiece-even a gold. That's what? A hundred golds. What will the bottles cost? And everything else. A hundred golds would be nice, but they certainly won't solve our problems." Creslin eases the saddle onto the black. • "I still like the idea."

   "Thank you. But it's not enough, and I should have known better."

   "Are you going to do it?"

   "Why not? Someday it might really lead to something, and it will give us a few coins in the meantime. Besides, I'd feel like a fool if I didn't carry it through now." He tightens the saddle. "I don't know. Sometimes it seems like nothing safe and orderly will save us."

   "Don't say that."

   "That's the way I feel. I thought that having a ship would help. We have two, and we can trade in maybe four places on the entire continent. I thought that having more people with more skills would help, and now that we have them, we can't find enough food to last the coming winter."

   "You don't know that."

   "I wish I didn't."

   Creslin looks from Megaera's somber face to the open stable door and back again. "I'll see you tonight. I need to think."

   "Tonight." . . . best-beloved . . .

   Even her lingering farewell does not warm him as he rides southward past the Black Holding, on the road that he had hoped would one day be a grand highway from one end of the isle to the other.

   The sun is low in the western sky, heralding the end of summer .- . . and the darker days ahead.

 

 

CXXVIII

 

"I DON'T LIKE it." Hartor shakes his head. "Someone has been riding the winds around Lydiar, Tyrhavven, Renklaar, and even Hydolar."

   "You think it's Creslin?" Gyretis leans back in the white-oak chair.

   "Who else? It could be the White bitch-"

   "She's not White anymore. Almost pure Black."

   "That's not wonderful, either."

   "So? What's the problem?" Gyretis shakes his head. "Half of Candar hates him, and the other half fears him. He has only two ships, and not a great deal of gold or coin. His crops were barely sufficient."

   "The guard bitches brought him the remnants of the Westwind treasury." Hartor fingers the amulet he wears and walks to the window, where he glances across the white city.

   "Fine. That will buy him another trader's cargo ... or three. Several eight-days worth of food. It won't solve his problems."

   "He's going to do something. Is that what you're saying?"

   "I'm sure he is. But if we're careful, we can still come out stronger than before."

   "Stop playing games. Just say what you have to say!" snaps the High Wizard.

   "You're getting edgier than Jenred. Remind me never to consider taking a position of responsibility on the council." Gyretis straightens in the chair. "Look. In any fight, it really isn't who wins the battles that counts. It's what you have left when it's over. I don't think that Westwind ever lost a battle. The other thing is that you have to accept the fact that we probably can't destroy Reduce, at least not while Creslin's alive. So ... we want to make sure that our losses are as small as possible and that Creslin can get as little help as possible, because it will take a long time, even now that he's ensured favorable weather for Reduce, to build up that island without the help of outside gold and resources."

   "That's sound theory. Making it work could be difficult."

   "Make Creslin use force to get what he needs, and make sure that someone else pays for our losses."

   Hartor snorts. "That's easier said than done."

   "He needs coin; he needs tools; he needs more food; he needs timber; and he needs skilled craftspeople. He doesn't have enough coin, and that means he's going to have to steal it, or steal something that he can turn into coin."

   "And I suppose we should let him?"

   "No. But I wouldn't try to anticipate where he might strike. He'll destroy whatever forces you send against him. Your best defense is to play the benevolent ruler. Help get Montgren back together. Send extra food. Blame the damage, again, on Creslin, that renegade Black who wants to build an empire. See if you can pay some of the Blacks to help restore the Kyphran orchards. And offer slightly higher prices for Hamorian and Nordlan traded goods . . . but only after delivery in Candar."

   Hartor raises his eyebrows.

   "That brings their goods here, leaves their ships on the seas. We have more than enough coin."

   "There's never enough."

   "Think about it." Gyretis stands. "It's your decision, not mine. You asked what I suggested. I told you."

 

 

CXXIX

 

   "GIDMAN, I UNDERSTAND that the green juice is your concoction."

   "Begging your pardon, ser, and it is, but only because there's no grapes here worthy of the name." The stocky and grizzled trooper glares at Creslin. "Nothing grows here that'd make a decent wine, except perhaps pearapple brandy."

   "Maybe next year on the pearapples. Could you distill the green juice into a brandy?"

   "Distill . . . greenberry? That swill's so tart it'd twist your guts inside out."

   "I know that. But could you do it?"

   "If someone could get me the tubing, and the time. But it'd taste like those lightning bolts raised by ... the other regent, ser." Gidman licks his lips.

   "What about aging? Would that mellow it?"

   "Unless you have a secret bunch of casks, ser, we got nothing proper to age with. Aging mellows anything. It might rum that green lightning into simple poison."

   "I take it you don't like it?"

   "Some folks'll drink anything. Not me."

   "I'll get you the tubing and the time, Gidman. And some more tubs. You start brewing as much of the green juice as you can. You turn it into green lightning, and I'll figure out how to make it drinkable."

   "You do that, ser, and that's worth more than all the storms you called."

   "Probably," sighs Creslin. "You're going to have to move. Hyel will tell you where to start, once we're set up."

   "Begging your pardon again, ser. But you let me work it out with the masons and it'll happen faster, and it'll be what I need."

   Creslin grins. "Fine. If they have problems, they can come to Hyel or to me. Will that be satisfactory?"

   "Saving your grace, yes. 'Cept that stuff's still green swill."

   Creslin is shaking his head as he climbs the stairs to Hyel and Shierra's office. Hyel is out, but Shierra stands as he enters.

   "Gidman-the grizzled character who's making the green juice-is going to work out some deal with the stoneworkers to build a proper still, outside the keep. Would you let Hyel know that I said it was all right?" He turns to go.

   "Creslin?" Shierra's voice is soft.

   "Yes."

   "We all know you're trying."

   "Right now, trying doesn't count, does it?"

   "Don't tell that to Fiera."

   Creslin sighs and turns back to face her. "I suppose I deserved that. I can't ever repay her."

   "No."

   "What am I supposed to do? She brought those squads because . . . because . . ."He shakes his head.

   "She wasn't sure you understood."

   "What can I do? I still remember the one time we kissed. I wish I'd been smarter or braver or bolder. But then . . . everything would have turned out differently." He pauses. "So I owe her. We all do, but I owe her more than I can admit, and I don't even know how to repay it. There really isn't any way. Nothing I say-"

   "You just have. In a way."

   "I don't know. People want to see great deeds, and I'm trying to figure out how to pay for food two seasons from now, because what Fiera brought back won't last that long." |

   "There was quite a bit left in that strongbox."

   "It's a trade-off. If we don't buy tools, and supplies like the metals for the glassworks, we'll never be able to support I ourselves and we'll be starving two years from now. If we do spend the money on the future, we risk starving in the seasons ahead." Standing in the doorway, Creslin shrugs. "It's like juggling with sharp knives."

   "Why the green-juice distillery?"

   "I thought I'd explained that. No?" Creslin steps over to the window. "You can sell distilled spirits anywhere and at any time, usually without having to mark them down much, especially if the quality's good. Wool's the same way, especially if you're selling in Nordla. Right now we don't have any trading possibilities, not with the trade edict of the Whites."

   "You're trying to develop hard-cash products."

   "I thought I'd made that clear, but I guess not."

   "Maybe I wasn't listening. Building a distillery didn't sound like it was going to solve our trade problems."

   "It won't. But it might help for a little while."

   "You just confused me again," admits the former guard leader.

   "Our population's still small. The thirty or fifty golds we might net out of the distillery every season or so might buy enough food to make the difference. But what happens two years from now when we have another couple of thousand people here?"

   "That won't happen."

   Creslin catches her eyes. "We'll either have three thousand people or more on Reduce in two years or we'll be dead. We can't survive with fewer. We're getting a score every couple of eight-days already." He waits. "I need to be going. Will you tell Hyel about Gidman?"

   "I'll tell him, along with the explanation. I'll also tell Fiera."

   "How is she? I keep thinking about talking to her, but she didn't seem to want to face me. She avoids me even when I'm practicing."

   "She feels like she failed, and nothing you say can help now. But she'll need to deal with it, and with you, sooner or later."

   "I dreamed about her for a time, you know."

   "I know. She knows, and so does Megaera. But that was in a different world."

   Creslin nods, but the words, "That was in a different world," run through his head as he walks back down through the keep toward the stable. In less than two years, all Candar has been changed. Yet has it been only because of his and Megaera's actions?

   He steps into the exercise yard, where he sees a familiar blond head duck back into the newly constructed guard quarters.

   "Good day, your grace," offers a guard, saluting with a practice wand.

   "Good day." His eyes linger on the empty doorway where Fiera had stood. Then he crosses the stones as though he walks alone through the high forests of the Westhorns, as though he scales the towers of the sunset against the demons of the light. The remaining guards draw back.

   Even as he saddles Vola, the mare neither skitters nor whinnies, as though he is a storm that walks on two feet, bearing terrible lightnings poised like swords to fall from the Heavens.

   By the time he reaches the Black Holding, he is silent, and Vola offers her opinion with a whickering as he unsaddles her.

   "It's not that bad," he murmurs to the mare. "We only need to remake the rest of the world in a season." He slams the saddle on the rack and hangs the saddle blanket in place before dishing out one of the few remaining oatcakes into the manger. "Enjoy it. It may be your last for a long time."

   He stops by the kitchen, since he can feel that Megaera is there, washing up.

   "Begging your pardon, your grace, but is there anything you can do about the bread?" Aldonya looks up from a pot of soup on the stove and through the cloud of steam that fills the kitchen despite the two open windows.

   "What about it?" he asks.

   "There isn't any left, and no one seems to know when there will be more."

   "I don't know either. The Dawnstar won't be back for at least another eight-day, and Freigr may not have been able to get flour, not with the drought in Candar. Lydya thinks that the first of our maize will be ready to harvest in two or three eight-days. But it needs to be dried before it can be ground into flour."

   "We have not even maize flour? It will be a sad day when cornmeal is too dear for even the rich."

   "We're scarcely rich, Aldonya."

   "The fisherfolk think you are a great lord, and who am I to argue with those who toil on the great Eastern Ocean?"

   Creslin snorts. "You know what we eat, and what I have to wear. Great lord?"

   "They have even less, your grace."

   "I know, I know."

   "What do you know?" asks Megaera, her hair wrapped in a towel and her body garbed with the thin blue robe, clinging suggestively to her damp curves. Creslin cannot help but look longingly at her.

   "Not that! It's been a long day," she says firmly. "Some idiot didn't . . . never mind. I don't want to get angry about it again. We lost an entire crucible of colored crystal." She adjusts the towel around her head. "Cleaning up after cleaning up. Now, best-beloved, what do you know?"

   "Oh . . . about how little flour we have left, and how there's even less for the fisherfolk."

   "They asked me, too." Her lips tighten. "When will the Dawnstar-"

   "Not for at least another eight-day. There's no guarantee of what Freigr will be able to bring back."

   "You two. You cannot worry over what you can do nothing about. You, your grace"-Aldonya gestures at Creslin-"you need to wash up. We have a good fish stew for dinner, and even some of the white seaweed."

   "It's better than the brown." Megaera raises her eyebrows.

   "Would you prefer a desert of quilla roots?" he asks her. "You . . ." She shakes her head. "I am dressing for dinner, and I expect you to be equally presentable, best-beloved."

   After Megaera sweeps from the kitchen, Creslin, grinning, heads for the washhouse. He will worry about tomorrow when it arrives.

 

 

CXXX

 

"WE HAVE THEM now. Those few coins left from Westwind won't save them from slow starvation." A wide grin passes over the heavy wizard's face.

   "You have them . . . now," agrees Gyretis.

   "You think they can wiggle out of this one? How? They don't have that much coin. We're letting anyone go there who wants to, so they're getting more and more mouths to feed." Hartor licks his fleshy lips. "But he doesn't have enough gold for food, and we've bought up the prices. With the drought and the trade edict, they'll starve."

   "What if they go east?"

   "He has one ship that can cross the Eastern Ocean, and the emperor just might want to take it back if Creslin sends it there." Hartor fingers the amulet.

   Gyretis stares at the mirror and its white mist, which clears and reveals a town built on a hillside. His eyes widen. "Look at this, Hartor."

   "What about it?"

   "It's a town. With new buildings, and a keep easily three times the size of the old Duke's keep. That all happened in less than a year."

   "It will be deserted in less than another year."

   The thin wizard releases his breath, and the vision in the mirror is replaced with swirling white. "I don't know. What if Ryessa decides to cause trouble?"

   "What can she do?"

   "Send them food and coins, for one thing."

   "After what Creslin did to the weather, she can't send enough to make a difference."

   "What if he builds more ships?"

   "He can't build them in time."

   "You seem to have an answer for everything. Just like Jenred," Gyretis says in a low voice.

   "You're rather presumptuous today. In fact, you've become rather annoying recently. It's as if you were on Creslin's side."

   Gyretis shrugs, trying to ignore the challenge in the heavy wizard's tone. "I was just offering some possibilities about what might happen."

   "Bah. The coming small harvests, the economics, and the whole world are against Creslin. What can he do?" Hartor pauses. "Now . . . what I should do with you is another question." He looks at the mirror. The thin wizard lowers his head and makes no reply.

 

 

CXXXI

 

CRESLIN ALIGNS THE last stone, straightens, and steps back. The new and half-cubit-high wall encloses a square of three cubits on a side, the nearest edge perhaps a distance of five cubits from the southern terrace wall.

   "Ought to leave enough room for growth," he mutters to himself.

   He takes the spade and again mixes the dirt and other ingredients prescribed by Lydya. Once they are mixed to his satisfaction, he gently shovels the damp pile into the stone box. Then he plants the oak seedling in the center, carefully patting the soil in place.

   Water from the bucket comes next, with more careful tamping of the soil. Finally he reaches out, and as Klerris has taught him, strengthens the internal order of the seedling.

   "Not that I'll ever see you full grown," he thinks. "We plant trees for those who follow." Besides, he is merely making a personal gesture with the seedling. What counts more are the three small forests they have already planted in the lower hills to the south.

   Creslin takes several trips to replace the tools and shovel in the third guest house, which still serves as storeroom and sometime-workroom. On the last trip, he returns with a broom and sweeps away the loose dirt from the stones. He carries the broom back to the storeroom.

   "Your grace ... I was wondering whether one of you had spirited this off for some wizardly task." Aldonya takes the broom.

   "Waa . . . daaa . . . gooo ..." Lynnya lunges for the broom, nearly wresting herself from her mother's arms.

   "Lynnya, how will we ever get the floors swept? I put you down and you crawl into everything ..."

   "I'll take her for a little bit." Creslin holds out his hands. "The Dawnstar won't reach the pier for a time yet." .

   "Your grace ..."

   "I think I can manage."

   "Daaa gooo ..." Lynnya twines pudgy fingers into the hair of his forearm and twists.

   "Now . . . not that way." Creslin swings her up so she is looking over his shoulder.

   The small hand waves, then seizes upon his hair.

   "You little minx . . ." Creslin carries her back toward the terrace, wondering what ever possessed him to suggest baby-sitting for the little redhead, even for a short time.

   Aldonya shakes her head, and watches as the wizard carries her daughter from the shadows of the covered walk into the morning light on the terrace. She watches for a moment longer, then lifts the broom.

   Creslin sits down on the wall, holding Lynnya in his lap with an arm around her middle. The baby squirms and leans down toward the stones. "All right." He lowers her carefully to the terrace floor. She squirms again, one hand reaching for his boots. Inside, the vigorous swishing of the broom begins.