The Towers Of the Sunset (29 page)

AS THE REDHEAD’S angry departure leaves the three men and the body alone on the steps to the keep, Hyel shakes his head. “Never… asked to accept so much-” Creslin snorts loudly.

“You find this-” Joris gestures at the body “-amusing, Lord Creslin?”

“No. He got what he deserved. Maybe not even that. Megaera’s opposed to unnecessary violence.” Creslin’s voice sounds weary, even to himself.

“He was tired of living without women. Can you blame him for that? Isn’t this sort of death a bit much?”

Creslin wants to shake his head. Is attempted rape enough to condemn someone to death? Then again, he himself has killed to forestall murder. He answers the dark-haired man slowly. “There will be women here before long. And, yes, I can blame your man. If not just for trying to violate a woman against her will, then for gross stupidity. Anyone who attacks a wizard should be prepared for the worst. Megaera is a White Wizard, and she could have burned him on the spot.” He pauses but sees that Joris is not satisfied. “Sometime, when she is preoccupied, look at the scars upon her wrists. Those come from practicing her art when bound with cold iron.”

Joris shivers. “She is that strong?”

Creslin sighs. “We may be young and untried in many ways, guardsmen, but do you think truly that the Duke would entrust Reduce to us just so he could buy a few blades and supplies?”

Joris clears his throat. “You mentioned women?”

Creslin nods. “Women, supplies…”

“How do you propose to pay for supplies, Lord Creslin?” asks Hyel sardonically. “With dried fish? That is all that is in your treasury.”

“Some of it will be a gift of sorts. Some,” Creslin shrugs, thinking of the gold chain that Lydya had recovered and Klerris has presented to him, “I’ll have to pay for.”

“You have high plans for this desert island.”

Creslin is tired of the veiled warnings and cautions, of the skepticism, and of Hyel’s doubting tones. His eyes flash, and he turns full on the tall man. For a moment he says nothing, and when he speaks, his voice is soft. “You doubted my skills until I murdered your tool. You doubt my co-regent’s abilities until she leaves a corpse at your feet. Will you then continue to doubt? Or must I leave you as a corpse before you will dream again?”

Hyel does not attempt to meet Creslin’s eyes. “No one yet has succeeded in Recluce… my lord.”

“I am scarcely no one, Hyel.” Creslin laughs harshly. “And Megaera is certainly more than no one.” He nods to both of the men. “I would like parchments and quills in the cot shortly. I trust that you will think about my words, deeply.”

His first steps follow those of Megaera, but he has no interest in finding her quite yet. For all that he has said in her defense, Joris’s question still rings in his head. Should a man die for lusting after what he cannot have? Is the act of forcing such lust upon another enough to justify murder? Yet what choice did Megaera have? And what is the difference between one death and another? She has said it: “Dead is dead.”

He stretches his legs, then lets his booted feet carry him uphill and along the trail toward the eastern cliffs.

How is he that much different from, the nameless guard? Certainly he has thought about forcing his attentions on Megaera. How thin is the line between thought and action?

Behind him, two men watch him and his shadow for a time, their eyes falling occasionally to the corpse at their feet.

“CAN YOU INSTILL order in plants?” Creslin studies the drawing that Klerris has set before him. “Isn’t that what you did with that blue flower the other day?”

“Order? Blue flower?” Klerris smoothes the paper into place over a set of drawings that show the needed expansions to the keep. The Black Wizard places small stones on the coarse paper to hold down the corners against the stiff breeze that gusts in through the single window.

“To make them grow healthier. Or to determine which plants will produce the most fruit, the sturdiest grain… that sort of thing.”

“Oh, that. I can strengthen them. Certainly Lydya can do more. I suppose I could too. Why?”

“We’re getting additional people. People need food.”

“Creslin,” Klerris says slowly, “it’s too dry here to grow much of anything, even if the winter is mild, without cold rain or snow.”

“You’re speaking of the regular kind of plants.”

“Ah…” Megaera interrupts.

Creslin looks up from the table, the only steady table in Recluce, he suspects, borrowed from Hyel for the needs of the co-regency. The table and three chairs fill nearly all of the cot’s floor space.

“The plans for the… residence…” Megaera reminds the young Storm Wizard. “Unless you want to risk dying in your sleep sooner or later.”

“Oh.” Creslin looks down at the paper before him. “What’s this big room?”

“Dining hall. You’ll have to entertain,” Klerris explains.

“This?” asks Megaera.

“An extra bedroom,” Klerris admits.

Megaera’s eyes flash. “We agreed that Creslin and I will have separate bedrooms and that guests will be housed in adjoining guest houses, to be built later.”

“Then it must be a private study,” Klerris adds mildly.

“Then call it that. I’ll certainly need one,” Megaera says.

“This will take some work-”

“You’re going to have to use the troops.”

“Not until after the keep is expanded.”

“You’re right about that,” Megaera agrees while her eyes again study the rough plan on the table.

“What about clearing away the dirt and rock?” Creslin asks.

“I can do that,” Megaera notes.

Klerris nods. “Do you want to?”

“I’d better do it now, hadn’t I?” The redhead’s voice is flat, distant.

The room is silent for a time before she speaks again. “Why can Creslin use his powers to kill people and still be a Black or a Gray Wizard? I thought that all destruction was linked to chaos.” Megaera’s green eyes fix on the slight black-haired man.

“It’s not what magic is used for; it’s what kind of power is used.” Klerris’s voice slips into the well-worn grooves of a teacher who has explained repeatedly. “Order magic is involved with the ordering of things, sometimes rearranging, sometimes building. Chaos work breaks the bonds between things, destroys them, if you will, through fire or collapse.” He looks at Creslin. “How have you used your powers to kill?”

Creslin leans back in his chair, nearly unbalancing himself at the directness of the question. “I always called the winds.”

“What did you ask of them?”

“To build a storm, sometimes with hail or freezing rain.”

The Black Wizard looks at Megaera. “Do you see?”

“But that’s not fair! That means that an evil man can use order to kill and destroy.”

“Within limits… if he is a very strong wizard, and if he plans ahead well.”

“Would you explain that?” Creslin asks. Although he knows the answer, he wants Megaera to hear it from someone else.

Klerris shrugs. “Take Creslin. If ten armed men jump from behind that door at him, he has virtually no chance to use magic. You generally can’t call a storm that quickly, and you can’t count on being able to do it in all weather conditions… not easily. A White Wizard with equal strength could fry all ten of those men in an eye-blink.”

Megaera muses for a moment. “But why can’t a wizard do both White and Black magic then? You say that it’s the kind of magic, not the use to which it is put that matters.”

Klerris laughs. “It’s hard to be two things at once. For example, while you can for a while both love and hate Creslin, harboring both feelings over time will tear you apart inside. That’s why people end up either loving or hating something or someone about whom they feel strongly. The same is true of magic. Some are called to order, some to chaos, and some can choose. I’ve known of only one Gray Wizard, and she died very young. It’s theoretically possible, but I doubt that many could manage it.” He smiles sadly. “You also have to be sane to use order. Not loving, not necessarily compassionate, but sane.”

“But it’s not fair.”

Klerris understands the thought behind her words. “You are not called to chaos, thankfully. You can choose. Creslin has no such choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think Creslin doesn’t like to use his powers to kill?”

“He gets sick.” She grimaces. “I know that too well, but I don’t understand how a man can lose his guts if he calls a storm to kill but remain perfectly calm if he uses a blade.”

“I don’t,” Creslin responds. “But the reaction isn’t nearly so great with the blade. You don’t feel what I feel when I use a blade because it’s shadowed with your own anger.” His stomach remains quiet, reassuring him of the truth of his statement.

“But why?” persists the redhead.

“Because,” answers the Black Wizard, “death is a form of chaos, and order that causes death creates stresses of a logical nature within the magician. That’s why Black magicians move away from the violent uses of order as they grow older. A young, healthy person can take that stress for a while, but not forever.”

“So…” Megaera sighs. “How do I learn order?”

Klerris shrugs. “I wish I could give you an easy answer. There are less than a handful of people who have made that transition. None would share the particulars, but the first step is to renounce all uses of chaos, even the silly little things like finger-fire.”

“I have to give up…” She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

Neither man says anything, nor do Klerris or Megaera appear to notice the dampness on Creslin’s cheeks as he looks away and out through the small window, the one that shows the hillside to the north where the existing keep will be expanded.

He swallows but says nothing as his hand reaches out and pins down the nearest corner of the paper. Although he could still the breeze, the coolness is welcome.

“Hyel won’t like his troops being used as builders,” Klerris adds.

Creslin looks at the rough plans on the table again. “We don’t have much choice. Neither does he.”

“Are you going to tell him that?”

“Who else?”

“Of course,” adds Megaera. “Another chance for best-betrothed to establish his authority.”

“Don’t you think that is a little unfair?” asks Klerris.

“Yes. But most men are unfair by nature.”

Klerris begins to roll up the plans.

After a time, Creslin frowns, his eyes still focused elsewhere. “We need trees, too. Can you get seedlings?”

“Trees?”

The silver-haired man with the sun-tinged skin and the recently calloused hands nods. “They use aqueducts in Sarronnyn to bring the water from the mountains.”

“Creslin…”

“He’s off somewhere,” Megaera interjects from the other side of the table, her eyes turning from Creslin and out through the narrow window on the wave-tossed winter sea beyond the breakwater.

“YOU WANT THEM… us… to act like common laborers?” The garrison commander’s voice is not quite disrespectful.

“No. I want them to earn their pay.” Creslin adds, “They just might survive that way.”

Hyel’s hand goes to his sword. “Even you wouldn’t-”

“How do your men like eating fish every day? Or having just enough dried fruit to keep them barely healthy? Eating lime rinds to ensure that their teeth stay firm?”

The grim expression on the lanky guard captain’s face is replaced with one of puzzlement. “They don’t. But what-”

“It’s clear enough.
Fairhaven isn’t likely to want to lose any more ships. They won’t touch the Duke’s ships, either one of them. And they won’t touch the ships that carry refugees from Candar or anywhere else. But they will make it known that any ship trading with Reduce cannot trade with Fairhaven, and who besides a few smugglers will risk losing the White Wizards’ gold for our few coppers? Yet I wouldn’t be surprised if we had five hundred more souls here in
Land’s End in less than a year. We need a larger keep for the soldiers, and one with separate quarters for female guards-”

“Women?” Hyel’s tone turns colder than the troubled northern seas beyond the breakwater.

“I expect a detachment of Westwind guards,” Creslin notes coolly. “And perhaps one from Sarronnyn. They’ll have some consorts and children, but not enough. That might provide a bit of interest for you and your men, assuming they don’t mind meeting women who are likely to be their betters with blades.”

Hyel’s eyes flicker from Creslin to Megaera, who has remained slightly behind Creslin’s shoulder, almost as if in a shadow of her own making. “Do you think this is wise, lady?”

Megaera shrugs. “Wisdom comes after survival, Guard Captain. Without… the Storm Wizard here, and the troops he is calling in, you would be dead in less than a season.”

Hyel takes a deep breath. “This all… will take some getting used to.”

“You’d better start quickly,” observes Megaera tartly. “Zarlen wouldn’t have lasted against a Westwind guard much longer than he did against Creslin.”

“But my men, building quarters-”

“Don’t worry. The newer guards will have plenty of building projects as well. We need an inn by the harbor.”

“An inn?” Both Megaera and Hyel look at Creslin.

“Why not?” Creslin grins. “We will have visitors. We might as well separate them from their coins legitimately. And a public room, controlled by a few trustworthy guards, might be worthwhile for everyone.”

“Couldn’t some of the guards start on that now?” asks Hyel.

Creslin purses his lips, frowns, then shrugs. “I don’t see why not, but first we’ll need to see if Klerris can draw up some rough plans.”

“Does it have to be all that big?” Megaera asks. “Couldn’t you plan it so that we could build it bigger later?”

“Well, the public room…”

Hyel nods. “Better to build that pretty big to begin with.”

Creslin clears his throat. “There’s one other thing.”

The half-smile fades from Hyel’s face. “Yes?”

“I’m going to spend part of each morning training your men and part of the morning teaching you the conditioning routines.”

“If you’re replacing us with-”

“Hyel,” snaps Creslin, “I’m not replacing anyone. Before this is over, we’re going to need every single person on this isle who can wield a blade. Besides, I don’t want to see another Westwind, where all of the arms are controlled by women. And Megaera doesn’t want to see someplace like Montgren or
Fairhaven, where women are regarded as inferiors. But the only way there’s likely to be equality around here is if your men are actually good enough to command respect.” Creslin stares at the tall man.

Hyel takes a half-step backward.

“That includes you as well,” Creslin adds. “I’ll be here early tomorrow to tell your men what I just told you.”

“I would appreciate that.” Hyel wipes his forehead.

Creslin nods and turns, walking toward the open doorway.

Megaera smiles brightly, falsely, at Hyel, who retreats another half-step.

Outside, Megaera steps up beside Creslin. “Best-betrothed, how are you going to do all of this?”

Creslin smiles. “I’m not. You’re the co-regent. I thought that you could supervise either the harbor projects or those here at the keep. Klerris is going to work on the orchards and the plants, but I want him to teach both of us how.”

She snakes her head, and the flame-red strands fly out against the wind. “You intend to build a kingdom overnight to challenge
Fairhaven?”

“No. Reduce won’t challenge any country. We just won’t be challenged.”

“You mean that. You really mean that.” Megaera ponders for a moment, glancing from the empty pier to the small keep and the small cot they so uneasily share. When she looks up, she sees that Creslin’s quick strides have taken him toward the gnarled orchard on the hillside above the keep.

A faint smile crosses her lips.

Below, in the harbor, a fishing boat beats in toward the pier, and sea gulls circle the single mast, hoping for an easy meal. Two women push a cart down the dusty road to off-load the fish for gutting and drying on the hillside frames under the old nets that hold off the birds, or most of them.

Megaera looks back toward the hillside where Creslin stands by the wall next to the orchard of gnarled pearapples. She shakes her head again, but this time the gesture holds a wistful sadness.