Ordermaster (85 page)
Kharl turned at the next side road, the one that turned east and bordered the lower gardens of the Quadrancy Keep. After about fifty cubits, he reined up under an ancient oak, one that shielded him from direct view from the southeast tower, and dismounted.
"I'll be hereabouts somewhere, ser," said Demyst.
"I'd guess it won't be much longer than a glass," Kharl said.
"Be careful."
Kharl nodded. He intended to be most careful. He waited for a brief time until Demyst was another fifty cubits farther east, then turned to the tree.
While the oak had been trimmed and pruned to eliminate any lower branches, Kharl visualized a set of steps made of hardened air, then created the stairs as a form of air shield. He released the air shield as soon as he was in the branches of the oak.
He climbed up several more branches until he was above the wall. Then, creating a sight shield, he eased himself down onto one of the stone merlons and slipped down onto the guardway.
Walking swiftly but carefully, he followed the guardway back west, then northward toward the main section of the keep. Kharl had to step into embrasures twice as guards passed, but his sight shield was enough, and none even paused.
From what he had discovered earlier in the eightday, Osten had taken apartments on the third level while the Lord's quarters were being repaired and rebuilt, and his study was directly above where the battlement ran beneath and adjoined the west wall. There was a balcony outside the study.
Kharl stopped a good ten cubits short of the balcony. He let his order-
perceptions reach upward. As he had anticipated, Osten was in his study alone, as he usually was in the glass before the evening meal. Because it was still summer, the door to the balcony was also open, providing air to the study.
Kharl smiled, briefly. For most, a six-cubit sheer wall would have been a problem. Kharl created another set of steps out of hardened air and made his way up to the balcony. Holding the sight shield, Kharl made his way unseen up his invisible steps. He was sweating profusely by the time he stepped over the parapet and released the steps of hardened air.
Still, he was inside Osten's defenses. While there were guards throughout the keep, the closest pair was stationed outside the door to the bedchamber, beyond the study. Kharl eased through the open balcony door.
Osten sat at a table desk, a large ledger before him, his back to Kharl.
Kharl stepped slowly to the door between the empty bedchamber and the study. Once there, he quietly closed the door, which had been only slightly ajar, and slid the lock plate closed. Osten did not look up or turn his head.
Kharl hardened the very air around Osten, leaving only space for his nostrils and ears, before stepping forward and releasing the sight shield so that Osten could see him.
"Osten, Lord West," he said quietly. "I don't think you believed me when I said that I could always get to you."
Osten tried to struggle, but could move not a muscle.
"This is to show you that I can. If I ever hear of cruelty or unfairness- the way your brother and father acted-I will return, and you will no longer be Lord West. You will no longer be anything."
Osten's breath rasped in and out of his nostrils.
"If you ever try to send assassins after me, or after whoever is envoy for Austra, the same thing will happen. It is very simple. All you have to do is your best to be a fair and just ruler. You do that, and you have nothing to worry about." Kharl laughed softly. "You didn't see me coming, and you didn't hear me, and all your walls and guards meant nothing." Kharl took the pen from the stand and dipped it in the inkwell, then wrote across the open page of the ledger: "Be fair. Be just, and fear nothing."
He set the pen back in the stand, then looked at the red-faced Osten. He smiled and said, "Good night, Lord West."
After stepping back, Kharl raised the sight shield around himself. Then he walked to the balcony. He took a deep breath and wiped the sweat from
his forehead, then re-created the air-steps, releasing them as soon as his boots touched stone once more. Not until he was on guardway below and halfway to the garden oak did he release Osten's bonds.
This time, short of the oak, he used the stairway of hardened air to the ground beside the lower garden wall.
Behind him, he heard no alarms, no outcries, and he sensed no guards moving. Was that because Osten had decided against telling anyone what had happened? Because it showed he was vulnerable? Kharl didn't know, and didn't much care, so long as he reached the Seastag safely.
He did not see Demyst immediately and began to walk eastward. He'd been walking almost a quarter of a glass before he sensed the undercaptain and the two mounts. Releasing the the sight shield, he stepped out from behind one of the hedges.
"I'm back," he said quietly.
"Getting worried, ser."
"So was I." Kharl grinned, then mounted, and wiped his forehead.
They rode quickly downhill through the darkness toward the waiting Seastag-and to Jeka.
Epilogue
1 here won't be any great mages in the future," Kharl said, standing on the front porch and looking out at the small harbor of Cantyl-his harbor, or his and Jeka's. "I had trouble stopping rifle bullets when a whole company was firing. Before long, they'll start building bigger cannon with soft iron shells, maybe even black iron shells. Then they'll build something bigger, because the next Emperor of Hamor, or the one after that, or the one after that, can't stand the thought that someone stopped Hamor from grabbing another land."
"Doesn't matter," Jeka said, squeezing his hand. "Always someone making trouble. You fixed things now. When the time comes, folks then, they'll have to fix things for themselves."
"I suppose so."
"You've done enough. 'Sides no one's going to bother Lord Ghrant so
long as you're his mage. Folks are stupid, but not many stupid enough to get you after them."
"I didn't really create all that chaos," Kharl pointed out. "The chaos-wizards did."
Jeka laughed, the musical laugh that he loved so much. "Who knows that, except you and me?"
Kharl squeezed her hand back and looked at the smooth silver of the harbor water, calm in the late fall evening.
Praise for
L. E. Modesitt, Jr», and
the Saga of Reduce
"More than a story about the battle between good and
evil, the Saga of Reduce is as rich and complex a cre
ation as Tolkien's Middle-earth."
-BookPage
"Marked by high intelligence. A powerful, educated, serious, and understated imagination is plainly at work in this latest entry to a saga that is beginning to take on the complexity... of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time cycle."
-Publishers Weekly on Colors of Chaos
"Modesitt has established himself with his Reduce
series as one of the best '90s writers of fantasy. The
fantasies are characterized by a highly developed and
consistent system of magic."
-Vector
"As usual, Mr. Modesitt provides masterful characterization, exquisitely subtle plot development, and a breathlessly exciting conclusion for an outstanding reading experience."
-Romantic Times on Scion of Cyador
ISBN 0 765-31213-1
$27.95 ($38.95 CAN)
Praise for Wellspring of Chaos
"Modesitt's excellent new story has thought-provoking underpinnings that will snare newcomers as well as old Reduce hands."
-Booklist
"Modesitt's twelfth Reduce fantasy, his first since 2001's Scion of Cyador, delights from start to finish-A welcome new chapter in the Reduce saga, with the ending all but promising a sequel."
-Publishers Weekly
ORDERMASTER
is the thirteenth book in the Saga of Reduce and the direct sequel to Wellspring of Chaos. The cooper Kharl is now a powerful order mage. He has no sooner taken possession of Cantyl, the estate bestowed upon him by Lord Ghrant, ruler of Austra, than he is summoned back to Valmurl, the capital, to aid Lord Hagen, the lord-chancellor, in dealing with rebellious lords.
After a bloody campaign, in which Kharl discovers and is forced to use even more deadly order magery, civil order is restored and Ghrant's throne is firmly secured. But Kharl is now a famous and feared public figure, the Lord's Mage.
Kharl is requested to return to his homeland of Nordla as an envoy, because there is no one else Hagen and Ghrant can trust-and because Nordla has become the next target of Hamorian expansion. Kharl has to find a solution, for both his adopted new country and his former homeland.
L. E. MODESITT, JR.,
lives in Cedar City, Utah.
Jacket art by Darrell K. Sweet jacket design by Carol Russo Design
A TOR" HARDCOVER
Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company, Ltd.
Printed in the USA
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Book Information:
Genre: Fantasy
Author: L.E. Modesitt
Name: Ordermaster
Series: Saga of Recluse, Book 13
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