The Magic of Recluce - L. E. Modesitt [106]
I thought I’d more than earned it.
By the time we actually dined the room was deserted, the fire low. We were served by the innkeeper himself. The veal was tender, the sauce succulent, and the golden wine like a fine autumn, perhaps the first time I had really enjoyed alcohol. Neither of us felt much like speaking until we had finished the main course and sat looking at a large redberry pastry.
“You did well, Lerris.”
“I see how you earn whatever they pay you,” I answered, returning the compliment as best I could. “That’s hard work.”
“There hasn’t been that much disorder since near the beginning,” mused the gray wizard, stroking his chin thoughtfully.
“You mentioned Recluce. What did you mean?”
“I’d hoped that the Recluce efforts against the duke had rebounded, so to speak, but the signs aren’t right. This is all too recent, almost as if…”
“As if what?” I took a small bite from the pastry.
He shrugged. “As if…well…as if you had gone with Antonin.”
“How could this happen? Does it take as much work to sow chaos as it took for us to heal it?”
“Less work. That’s the problem. Destruction is almost always easier than construction. It’s as though Verlya or Gerlis were working together with Antonin and Sephya. Or Sephya has gotten much stronger.” He shook his head again. “But that’s hard to believe.” He sipped the golden wine.
“Chaos-masters don’t work together?”
“Cooperation, beyond an apprentice-master or a male-female bond, is almost a contradiction in terms for chaos. Then again, the great ones seldom have to, since there are few to oppose them.”
“You oppose them,” I ventured.
“Not directly. I’m not order-pure enough for that.” He set down the glass. “I’m tired, and tomorrow we start for Jellico.”
“Another commission? More sheep?”
“Actually, in Jellico, it’s seeds.”
“Seeds?”
“Good seeds beget good crops, and Certis grows oilpods, the kind they squeeze for the scented lamp-oil that Hamor prefers…”
I yawned. Some aspects of wizardry and order-mastery were still boring. At least, though, the seeds couldn’t smell…I hoped.
XXXIII
OFF TO THE left was a line of trees that met the road about two kays ahead in what looked to be a grove. Under the pale blue sky, warmed by the winter sun, the frost and whatever snow might have fallen earlier had melted away from the road, and the stubble of the fields and occasional meadows.
Now that we had crossed the Montgren Gorge and passed into Certis, the occasional fenced field and extensive sheep meadows had largely given way to entirely fenced fields, now covered with maize stubble or other grain stalks. The huts were larger, and many even boasted woodlots back away from the road. But the landscape and the countryside were boring. After all, how much creativity is there in fences and huts? And how long can you pass them without being lulled into stupor by their similarities?
Justen did not talk that much, and I did not press the gray wizard.
Wheeee…uhhh…Gairloch tossed his head, prancing for an instant, then slowing down.
Wheeee…eeee. Whatever it was, Rosefoot agreed with Gairloch.
I looked at Justen.
“They’re thirsty,” he said.
“Is that a stream up ahead?”
“I believe so. There is even a pavilion of sorts there, if I recall.”
“Pavilion?”
“A roof erected on four timbers, nothing more than a rain shelter.”
A rain shelter we didn’t need, but it was probably better than stopping by the roadside.
The pavilion was there, but a nearby oak had pulled up its roots, toppled, and broken the ridgepole. Between the fallen green oak and the collapsed pavilion, most of the travelers’ area was unusable, although a path worn by other travelers led down a drop of half-a-rod to the stream.
At the top of the incline, I dismounted and led Gairloch toward the water.
Whee…eeeee…He tossed his head, and I studied the trees that stood back off the watercourse. I saw nothing. Then I tried to sense chaos. Nothing there either.
“Well…here you are…drink what