Free Michael A. Stackpole by A Hero Born Page A

heard he’s buried with your mother back in Stone Rapids. When Chaos is linked to a legend you can never tell truth from fiction.”
    I felt my mouth go dry. “Was my father a good Chaos Rider?”
    Roarke smiled easily. “That he was. Whereas other men would just use muscle against the Chademons, Cardew foxed them. He said, I’m told, fighting in Chaos was like a big chess game. He had mapped out many of the areas where time flows differently, figured out what the difference was, and was able to use that map to his advantage.”
    My face brightened. “How did he determine what the time-rate difference was?”
    The Chaos Rider arched his back and rotated his shoulders to loosen them. “Cardew was a thinker, he was. He took two twelve-foot-long planks and lashed hourglasses between them at the far ends of the boards. When he found a boundary he would insert one hourglass beyond it, then invert the whole contraption. By looking at how much sand was left in one when the other ran out, he was able to calculate the difference.”
    “That was smart!” 1 smiled proudly. “He could use fast zones to speed healing for lightly wounded people and slow zones to secure his flanks.”
    “Like father, like son.” Roarke winked his right eye at me. “That is very much the sort of thing he did. One time he had a man who had been mortally wounded. He placed him in a very slow zone, then sent riders all the way back to Port Chaos to fetch a magicker who could spell the man back to health.”
    “But you don’t know what happened to him—my father, 1 mean?”
    Roarke shook his head. “I don’t know. Cardew and the leader of the Black Shadows, Kothvir, had quite a rivalry. Kothvir even forged a sword with a likeness of your father etched into the blade. Mark of being a dangerous man, that is, to have a vindictxvara made to deal with you. And Kothvir stopped being a force among the Bfiarasfiadi at the same time your father disappeared, so perhaps Cardew got him after all.”
    I had heard a similar thing in the past, but it felt good to have a Chaos Rider say it instead of a bard. “You said there were pockets of Chaos in which time moved very slowly, correct?”
    “Yes.”
    “So it is possible that my father and my uncle are still alive and trapped in one of those zones, or that they have been wounded and exiled themselves to one of them?”
    The hopeful note in my voice seemed to make Roarke wince. “It is possible, Locke, but not entirely likely. I would rather bet that the sun and moons will collide than on your kin still being alive, I’m sorry to say.”
    “But it could be true.” My eyes narrowed. “You said it yourself, ‘things like that happen in Chaos.’”
    “So I did, Locke, but I didn’t say they happened all that often.” Roarke shook his head. “Anyone expecting to find a miracle in Chaos better be damned lucky, or prepared for a big disappointment.”
    Cresting the hill on Herakopolis’s western edge, I saw a city that exceeded even Roarke’s glowing descriptions of it. Some of the larger estates in the outlying district had seriously impressed me, and I had embarrassed myself by refusing to believe that one or more of them were not the Emperor’s property. That individuals would have amassed enough money to own one building that itself was larger than my grandfather’s homestead quickly redefined my concept of personal wealth.
    The capital started me redefining my concept of reality. Stretched out in a vast demilune around Herak Bay, the city consisted, for the most part, of whitewashed buildings with red tile roofs. Gaudily colored clothes flapped in the sea breeze from lines strung between many of the buildings, setting whole portions of the city in motion. A seawall and breakwater split the azure bay from the deeper ocean, while huge walls rimmed the city itself to protect from landward assaults.
    The Imperial Palace dominated the top of the highest hillock in the city. A monstrously large