The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [120]
“You asked to see me?” The Marshall’s flint-blue eyes take in the slightly built, dark-haired woman.
“Yes, Dylyss, I did. I’ve come to collect for Creslin.”
“Your name?”
“I’m known as Lydya. Werlynn was . . . from my family.”
The Marshall does not reply immediately, nor do her eyes leave the healer. “You’re not just a healer.”
“No. I never said I was.”
The Marshall’s lips quirk. “What are you collecting?”
“Seeds, cheese, weapons—and the detachment you promised Korweil. The new regents of Recluce would appreciate the aid.”
“Creslin didn’t send you?”
“No.”
“The seeds . . . we have some in trade from Suthya. They’ll do us little enough good. And there’s always extra cheese. Older weapons? There are some we could spare.” The Marshall pauses.
“And guards?”
“I’ll ask for volunteers. The other kind wouldn’t do him any good, would they?”
Lydya smiles faintly. “No. And losing those volunteers will help you as well.”
“Tell me, healer . . . what is she like?”
Lydya shakes her head. “That, Marshall, I do not know. Only that you and Ryessa will create the greatest good and the greatest evil that Candar will ever know.”
“That’s what Werlynn said.”
“I know.”
“Will you stay a time?”
“Only until all things are gathered. I have to collect from Ryessa.”
LXXVII
“BUT I’M A White.” Megaera glances at the gnarled pearapple tree beyond the tumbled stone wall. A gust of wind whips sandy dust across her boots, for the road they stand on is little more than a trail.
“Names do not matter,” Klerris observes mildly. “You have the ability, although it will be harder for you. Whatever you do, do not try to remove disorder.”
“What? But isn’t that the purpose?”
“It is,” responds the Black Wizard, picking up a stone and absently replacing it on the wall, “but you cannot remove disorder through the power of disorder, at least not until you are very accomplished. How can you stop killing with more killing?”
“You can reduce it,” offers Creslin, scuffing his boots in the hard red clay.
“True.” Klerris smiles in the afternoon sunlight. “If you kill those who kill hundreds, the killing will be reduced, but your potential for destruction is that much greater. That is why Megaera so fears your blade, not because you can kill, but because even without using your powers for order, you become a White force of destruction.”
“I’ve felt that way, but I didn’t know why, exactly,” admits the redhead.
“Now you know.” Klerris points to the pearapple tree. “Look at the tree with your senses . . .”
Creslin complies, seeing the faint underlying blackness of order and the red-tinged white streaks of chaos.
“But why can’t I just remove the white?” asks Megaera.
Klerris sighs. “Go ahead.”
Creslin holds his breath as Megaera, though not moving from her stance behind the wall, seems to enfold the tree.
She withdraws, and the whiteness is indeed gone, with only the faint blackness remaining. “See? I did it!”
“Yes, you did.” Klerris’s voice is neutral.
Creslin watches the gnarled tree, watches as the remaining blackness stretches as if to cover the space the whiteness has departed, watches as the blackness thins . . . and vanishes.
Crackkkkk . . .
The tree splits, but even before the trunk fully cracks, a sense of dryness emanates from the winter-bare branches.
“It will take a few weeks to fall over, but this tree is dead,” Klerris says.
“But why?” protests Megaera. “You knew that would happen! You let me kill that tree.”
“Because,” Klerris explains in his patient teaching voice, “both order and chaos are energy. If anything living has too much chaos as part of its being, removal of the chaos lowers the vital force below the minimum for life. A good chaos-healer can cure some sicknesses, but it is always a risky process, especially with the cases of sickness where chaos actually changes the body.”
“Is anything all chaos?” Creslin looks beyond Klerris at the next gnarled tree.
“Darkness, no. Nothing living, anyway. It takes order to