-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Ayrlyn. Without your order, then you d have uncontrolled energy that would
swirl out and dissipate in entropic heat?
I don t know. That s my guess. There s got to be a balance, and somehow
the Old Rats maintained that balance. Something happened-
What are you going to do?
We re going to act as system engineers, I guess.
I m no engineer.
This isn t a ship s system, either. It takes feel. That s where you come
in.
Oh?
I m going to try to feel out the system.
After what s already happened?
We ll try it just inside the old growth.
We re going to walk into that? Ayrlyn frowned.
Why not? As we found out, it can hit hard even from a distance. What s the
difference between being in the middle of a flux or standing at the edge if it
goes chaos?
Ayrlyn grinned wryly. Only the size of the particles that you re reduced
to, but I don t know that I m in the mood to be reduced.
Before you do battle with the forest, suggested Sylenia, standing by the
edge of the bushes, best you eat.
She has a point. Nylan lurched to his feet and toward Weryl, scooping his
son up and carting him back into the small house. The smith s shoulder brushed
the green-glazed ceramic screen. Such artistry-all abandoned so quickly. Then
he supposed he d have abandoned it too, especially if there were a lot of
those big cats prowling around. The locals, Ayrlyn had pointed out, didn t
carry much in the way of weapons.
Several loaves of bread were spread on wide leaves, along with some nuts
and what looked to be yellow apples.
Those are pearapples, Sylenia explained. Yusek brought me one, once.
These are better. They are fresher.
Nylan sliced off a chunk of the loaf and chewed the moist and tangy bread.
What& is this& ?
It be squash loaf. I can bake. With but one pot& The dark-haired woman
shrugged. Weryl, he is good at finding the healthy fruits and things. I
follow him.
Ayrlyn looked at Weryl. So did Nylan. Was Weryl sensing the forest the way
he did the notes from the lutar?
Da! Ahwen!
Does this bread keep? For travel? asked Ayrlyn. We ll need something on
the way back. If we get that far. Ayrlyn frowned. Pessimist.
I could wrap it in leaves. Sylenia shrugged. Do you plan to leave soon?
Not that soon, Ayrlyn said after taking a swallow of water. The nuts are
good.
They must be cooked, or they are bitter.
Nylan was glad Sylenia knew about the local vegetation. He probably would
have starved. Then, those of them in Westwind nearly had in the first year, at
least partly out of ignorance. He tried the nuts, and they were tasty. He kept
Page 257
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
eating until he realized that he was no longer hungry, but that he was almost
stuffing food into his mouth.
Nervous?
Nylan nodded. You?
Of course.
He wiped his mouth and took another low swallow of water, then stood.
Da! Ahwen!
Nylan bent and lifted Weryl, hugging him tightly for a moment. Weryl hugged
him back, then turned his head.
He wants to give you a hug. Nylan eased Weryl toward the redhead.
Ayrlyn embraced the silver-haired boy, and Nylan could sense her tears. Be
good, Weryl. Be good. She set him on the glazed tile floor, and Sylenia
immediately took his hand.
Nylan swallowed. Am I doing the right thing? Have I any choice ?
No, came the thought from Ayrlyn.
They walked quickly out the rear door to where the mounts they had saddled
earlier waited.
This is scary, he admitted after climbing into the saddle.
She nodded, pursing her lips.
They rode into the growing outer forest without speaking, letting the mares
pick their way toward the unseen wall and the boundary between the ancient
domain of the forest and its recent acquisition.
We can do this. We just have to think about balance.
Thinking about it is easy, but trying to make ourselves part of it isn t
going to be easy.
Nothing important ever is.
Nylan nodded. She was right about that.
After tying both mares to trunks that were noticeably thicker than the day
before, the two walked slowly toward the creeper-covered wall that was
measurably lower than the day before.
For something that doesn t think, it s certainly removing its past
boundaries quickly enough, Ayrlyn noted.
Thought and intelligence are just illusions that primates glory in.
Nylan s voice was dry. So was his mouth. The narrow gray-green leaves on the
new trees seemed to rustle, though he could sense no breeze, and a mist
drifted out from the older growth, carrying the unfamiliar mixed floral scent
that was neither too cloying nor too astringent.
Nylan swallowed and stepped across the creepered and vanishing wall. He
swallowed again, and tried to relax.
Ayrlyn touched his arm. We re doing this together, remember.
What were they doing?
Nylan finally let his thoughts drift outward, as though he were still on
the powernet of the Winterlance, letting his mind follow his senses through
the mist, through the green shoots, through the intertwining of the hot
reddish white of chaos, and the cool black bands of order. Beside him, he
could sense the order-rooted solidity of Ayrlyn, and even the distant presence
of Weryl, though his son seemed a more innocent balance between darkness and
chaos.
Their progress seemed nearly effortless, as they stood there, yet moved
through the swirls of darkness, jets of chaos, and unseen and intertwined webs
where the two forces merged. Yet there was no gray, only black and white, a
blackness deeper than night, a whiteness tinged with sullen red, like the hot
coals of a smithy.
Beneath the surface flows was a deeper, more intricate intertwining of
order and chaos. Why was the pseudonet flux more simple in the open air? Was
it the earth? Or was everything more complex the deeper one went?
Nylan took another breath, then tried to let his senses take in the subtle
mixtures of ordered red and white iron and white-red chaos that seemed pure
fiery destruction. Mixtures of order and chaos, patterns intertwining, tugged
at him, drawing him toward them.
Page 258
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
There-amid a grove that seemed to grow as he watched- was an upwelling of
pure black, somehow power-surged, white-red simultaneously, that wrapped
itself around a fountain of white tinged with red. Beyond the fountain was a
rhythmic pulsing of smaller order-beats against a squarer kind of chaos, like
a powerboard balance.
Nylan cleared his throat, and Ayrlyn s hand touched his elbow, a tinge of
dark and comforting order in the fluxes that swirled and rose around them. He
relaxed, as he could, and tried to take in, without judgment, the intertwining
of order and chaos, trying to let himself drift along the lines of order,
along the forces that made the Winterlance s powernet seem insignificant,
toward a small fountain of blackness that somehow seemed to geyser deep out of
the roots of the forest, deep out of the melting rocks far below Candar, far
below Cyador.
Even as his senses neared the fountain, it shifted, toward chaos, and a
torrent of white boiled around the blackness, and red chaos, oozed, then [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- zambezia2013.opx.pl