The Death of Chaos by L. E. Modesitt Jr. Page A

Both were of mud brick covered with a thin layer of white plaster that the red dust and rain had turned an uneven pink. They had red-tiled roofs.
    Across the flat grassless expanse that was a square, by the virtue of a large stone tablet commemorating something, was a two-story structure, also of mud bricks, but without the plaster, with a peeling signboard bearing a crude picture of a fireplace.
    “That’s the Old Hearth,” explained Yelena. “Local herders go there. New recruits…once.”
    We rode straight to one end of the stables. I took the smallest stall, and unsaddled Gairloch.
    Kaaachew…
    “Still sneezing, Order-master?” asked Yelena.
    “Damned dust…” I kept brushing Gairloch until he looked clean, and until I had a second coat of dust. Then I found some feed for him and a bucket of water. About that time a bell rang. The others—except for Yelena—had left.
    “Our rooms are there,” she explained. “You rate an officer’s space.”
    The room was narrow—less than five cubits deep and only about ten wide, with a single shuttered window—no glass, no hearth. I set everything on the floor. There was no table, only a single narrow canvas cot. If I had an officer’s space, I felt sorry for Weldein, Jylla, and Freyda.
    “Dinner won’t be long, when the second bell rings.” Yelena left, carrying a bedroll and her knapsack.
    First, I beat the dust out of my clothes, standing outside my room.
    “You’ll just get dusty tomorrow,” observed Weldein from a good dozen cubits upwind.
    “That’s tomorrow.”
    I found the washroom and a pump, and used almost two buckets of water—cold water—to get the dust and mud off me. I blew red mud from my nose, dug red clots from my hair, and washed red mud from between my toes, from dust that had sifted down my boots. Finally, I got clean enough that the world didn’t smell like red grit. Then I shaved. As I was drying, the second bell rang, and I had to scramble back into my clothes.
    The three trestle tables were mostly filled, although the majority of those eating seemed to be outliers, both from their pale green leathers and shirts and the talk.
    “…Gyster…he says he’s desperate enough for the Old Hearth…”
    “…anyone that desperate?”
    “…swings a sword like a meat chopper…”
    “…know anything about the new wizard in Hydlen?”
    “Berfir is an overgrown herder with a big sword…”
    “…which kind…”
    “…bread, demon-damn it…”
    Yelena gestured to me, and I found a seat on the long bench near the end where an outlier wearing a gold-braided vest sat in a chair.
    “This is local leader Ustrello. Order-master Lerris.”
    “I appreciate the hospitality.” I inclined my head.
    “You are the one who bested the white wizard and discovered the secrets of the wizards’ roads, are you not? The ones no one else has been able to ride?” Ustrello appeared short, but broad, with white mustaches and shoulders that many oxen could have wished for.
    “I was fortunate enough to do so.” I felt embarrassed about having told Yelena about the roads, and then discovering that no one else could find them. That was another unfinished project, although it had lost its urgency when I had killed Antonin.
    Yelena smiled.
    Ustrello inclined his head to the woman between us, with hair in which blond and silver intertwined in a long braid piled on top of her head. “This is my consort—Tasyel.”
    “Is this the famous wizard, the one who did all the marvelous things, and the one with the strongest pony in the world?” She looked from Ustrello to me, as if in confirmation.
    “Gairloch will be pleased to know that he is the strongest pony in the world, and I am pleased to meet you, Tasyel.”
    “Is it true that you have an invisible sack that can never be emptied?”
    I groaned, shaking my head. “You have met Shervan?”
    “Shervan?” Both Ustrello and Tasyel looked puzzled. Yelena smothered a grin.
    “I stopped in Tellura when I