Colors of Chaos (13 page)

“Thank you.” Cerryl extended his arm again.

“Why did you ask me?”

“I trust you.” And somehow I’ve always cared for you, from the first time I saw you through a glass when I was so young and didn’t even know exactly what screeing was…

“Why did you want me there tonight?” asked the healer.

“I like being with you.” Cerryl grinned.

“I know that. But that’s not the only reason.”

“You know why,” he answered.

“You don’t want them to know.” She shook her head. “And it was my suggestion.”

“I listen,” he pointed out, taking her hand as they walked around the south end of the
Market Square
. “I especially listen to you.”

“I’m not sure whether I like it better when you do or you don’t.”

He could feel the humor in her words. “Well… if you don’t want me to listen… I could try that.”

“I could take another trip-say to Naclos,” she countered.

“Naclos? That’s where the druids are. People don’t come back from there.”

Leyladin shrugged playfully. “Then you wouldn’t have to listen to me.”

“Oh… now I have to listen to you?”

“No…”

He waited.

“Only if you want me to stay around.” She squeezed his arm, then smiled.

Cerryl shook his head slowly.

XX

Kinowin looked up from the table. “You had something odd happen? You only have to report to me once an eight-day, otherwise.”

“It’s not urgent,” Cerryl ventured.

Kinowin smiled wryly. “Since you’re already here, you might as well get on with it. Sit down.”

Cerryl eased into the chair across the table from the big blond overmage. “The other day, I had another farmer buy a medallion for his cart. The cart was older, but it had never had a medallion.” Cerryl studied the older mage.

Kinowin nodded. “Farmers have been known to buy medallions.”

“I checked the ledger. There have been almost a score since midsummer. Last year there were five; the year before, seven.” Cerryl shrugged. “I don’t know where the older ledgers are.”

In the archives. Esaak could tell you where. Or Broka, I suspect.“ Kinowin stood and moved over toward his latest hanging, the one with the blue and purple diamonds pierced with the black quarrels, and his fingers touched the wool for an instant. Then he shook his head and continued to the window, where he stood silhouetted against the green-blue afternoon sky and the scattered white and gray clouds. ”Did you tell lancers what you were looking for?“

“No. An eight-day or so ago, I did ask if we’d had more farmers than usual. This time, I just asked if I could look through the ledgers.”

“Good. Try to follow that example when you can. There are enough rumors in
Fairhaven as it is.”

“About the ships?” Cerryl asked. “Or about Prefect Syrma?”

“Those are the most common,” Kinowin acknowledged. “What have you heard?”

“Only that the Guild is having trouble getting all the brasswork for the first ships.”

“The first ships aren’t the problem. They never are. Suppliers want the coins for the later vessels. They’re happy to deliver at first. Then it gets harder.” Kinowin turned from the window. “Why did you ask about the farmers?”

“It seemed like more wanted to sell in the city, and then The Golden Ram increased what it charged for meals.”

“That’s not surprising. There haven’t been any rains in Hydlen south of Arastia since spring. Nor in southern Kyphros. Food prices are increasing.”

“So farmers can get more by selling themselves, rather than to the factors?”

“They think so. Some do; some don’t.” Kinowin offered a wintry smile. “It’s not a problem yet.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“That’s not a problem.” Kinowin fingered his chin. “Why don’t you bring it up at the next Guild meeting? Except say that it could lead to worries in the city because the farmers are asking for more. That means that artisans will want more…”

“Oh…”

“We’ve already heard rumblings about that. But if you bring it up, it won’t be as if I have a blade to whet.”

Cerryl nodded.

“How is your healer friend?”

Cerryl shrugged. “I don’t know. Sterol sent her to Jellico. Viscount Rystryr’s son is ailing. No one knows why. She probably won’t be back before harvest.”

“I have no doubts the boy will recover, at least while she is there. Maladies seem far more common for heirs. They always have been.” Kinowin’s eyes flicked back to the roofs beyond the Halls.

Cerryl rose. “That was all. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Don’t be. You have a good feel for matters. You’re just feeling things that haven’t happened. They will. We haven’t had as much rain as normal, either. It happens every few years, but people forget-except the factors.” After a pause, Kinowin added, “I’ll see you an eight-day from now, unless something important happens.”

“Yes, ser.”

As he walked down the steps to the foyer, Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Kinowin had as much as told him that food was going to become even dearer. Was that why Leyladin’s father, Layel, was traveling all over eastern Candar? Arranging to buy grains and the like for more coins than in the past, but less than what the grains would actually fetch come harvest?

XXI

Cerryl sat in his chair in his room in the warm afternoon, muggy from the brief rain that had bathed the city only long enough to steam it, looking through Colors of White.

Cerryl found himself continually returning to the Guild manual, despite the fact that the book offered but tantalizing glimpses of aspects of the world that made sense… and suggested more. Yet for every time those glimpses led to something-such as his perfection of the light lances that Myral had said no other mage had developed in generations-there were a dozen times or more that he felt he had overlooked something. He took a deep breath and returned his eyes to the page open before him.

… and all the substance of this world is nothing more and nothing less than chaos bound into fixed form by order…

Cerryl blinked, then continued onto the next page, forcing his eyes to read each word and his mind to fix each within his memory.

… Fire is a creation of chaos that in itself replicates chaos, releasing chaos as it destroys what it consumes. Yet the skeptic would say that fire and chaos are limited, in that not all substances can be consumed in fire… That skeptic would be wrong, for in the presence of enough chaos, any substance will replicate the chaos beneath the surface of the world and the points of chaos we call stars…

As in all effort, that which is easy offers little benefit. So, too, with the power of chaos, for those substances with which chaos replication is difficult paradoxically contain the greatest concentrations of chaos… could it but be released…

Thrap!

Cerryl looked up from the book, almost with relief. “Yes?”

“Might I come in?” The voice was definitely feminine. Cerryl marked his place with the strip of leather he used for such and replaced the volume in the bookcase. He walked to the door and opened it.

Anya, wrapped in the strong scent of trilia and sandalwood, stepped into his room, her red hair flaming in the indirect light from the window. “You could close the door, Cerryl.”

“Of course.” Cerryl closed the door but did not slip the bolt shut.

She stepped over to the bed and surveyed it. “So neat. You are always neat and clean, as if you should have been born to the White.”

“I had to learn what comes naturally to others, and I fear I lack the grace you exhibit so easily.”

“You show much more grace than many born to the White.” She turned toward the window, letting the light silhouette her well-proportioned form.

“You are kind.” Cerryl inclined his head. “I would have to differ. Faltar shows far more grace than I, and you certainly know that.”

“One could underestimate you, Cerryl.” Anya smiled easily. “Almost. It is a pity you do not exhibit quite the… strength you did as a student.”

“Strength is not terribly useful if it cannot be focused, Anya. You have shown me that there are other talents besides pure strength of chaos, though you have that in ample measure.”

“Ah, Cerryl, one might almost wish you had more… innocence.”

“Anya, I have more than enough innocence to get me in trouble. More I scarcely need.” Cerryl’s tone was wry as he stood by the bookcase.

She laughed. “Will you be at the Guild meeting?”

“Since it is in the afternoon, I hope to be.”

“Jeslek will not be back, and I thought you might sit with me.” She flashed the warm and false smile he had come to recognize. “And Fydel, of course, since Faltar will be on gate duty.”

“I would certainly appreciate your tutelage, Anya. You are always so kind.”

“I do not think you said yes.” She smiled again, and the warm scent of trilia wafted around him.

“My heart would certainly say so.” Cerryl offered a smile he hoped wasn’t too false.

“Yet you have other commitments?”

“I know that I can be at the meeting.” Cerryl shrugged. “Then, I will have to see.”

Anya nodded. “I believe I understand. You know, Cerryl, that someday you will have to stand free of Myral and Kinowin. They are older, far older, than they might appear.”

“I will look to you for guidance, then.” But not in the way you think… not at all.

“I am flattered.” Anya smiled her broadest smile once more, then slipped toward the door.

“You should be. I meant to flatter you. You deserve it.” Cerryl opened the door for her.

“I do hope you will be able to join us.”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

With the door shut, Cerryl walked to his chair and sank into it with a deep sigh, sitting for several moments and trying to relax. Finally, he reclaimed Colors of White and opened it.

… for those substances with which chaos replication is difficult paradoxically contain the greatest concentrations of chaos… could it but be released… Yet the unbound chaos in the world must be concentrated most greatly were this to be done…

Thrap.

Cerryl set the book down with another sigh, hoping Anya had not returned. “Yes?”

“Cerryl?”

“You can come in, Lyasa. Please.” He set the book back in its place in the bookcase and walked to the door, opening it.

The black-haired Lyasa wrinkled her nose as she entered. “I thought so.” Her eyes went to the bed. “Good.”

“What did you want?”

“Just to make sure you survived your last visitor. Leyladin is my friend, too.” Her olive-brown eyes rested on Cerryl. “I trust you more than most men, but Anya I trust not at all.”

Cerryl had to smile.

“I’m not sure I find it amusing.”

“I haven’t trusted her since she found me in the street by the scrivener’s,” Cerryl admitted. “I see no point in angering her.”

“She’ll be angry if you don’t bed her-sooner or later,” predicted the black-haired mage.

“Not if I flatter her enough.” Cerryl added, “I hope.”

Lyasa dropped onto the bed. “You don’t mind, do you? My feet hurt.”

“Darkness, no. I haven’t seen you lately. What have you been doing?” Cerryl turned the chair and sat down, leaning forward.

“After an eight-day or so, they decided my talents were better used elsewhere than on the gates-for a while. I’m working with Myral’s masons on repairs to the offal treatment fountains and basins.” Cerryl winced. “That sounds worse than gate-guard duty.”

“It stinks more, but I don’t have to turn old ladies into ashes.”

“I didn’t want to…” And try not to think about it too much… or for too long…

“I know. Leyladin told me.”

The silence drew out for a moment, and a brief breath of hot air gusted through the open window into the room for a moment before subsiding.

“I wonder… do the Blacks on Recluce have problems like we do?”

“They have problems,” Cerryl asserted. “Everyone does. I doubt they’re the same. They just throw out people who don’t agree. Then we, or some other land, has to deal with them.”

“We don’t kill their exiles.”

“They don’t kill people who leave
Fairhaven.” He laughed. “Unless they agree with the Black doctrine, they just don’t let them stay.”

“We have to kill people who make trouble.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do some killing, one way or another.”

“I don’t know.” Lyasa ran her hand through her short and thick black hair. “I think it’s harder for the Guild to govern Candar than for the Blacks to run their isle.”

“Even eastern Candar is bigger,” Cerryl pointed out. “I think Gallos alone is bigger than the whole isle.”

“That’s not it. You know what I think?”

“What?”

“That it’s all because Creslin was a ruthless bastard. He killed off anyone who didn’t agree right in the beginning, and they throw out dissenters, and they’re on an isle. Nobody’s left to disagree.”

“Could be.” Cerryl shrugged. “That would be Anya’s style. Jeslek’s, too, I think.”

“Why are you telling me that?”

“Because I trust you.”

“Have you told Faltar that?”

“No.”

“He’s your friend.”

“You know why,” Cerryl said with a laugh.

“Alas… men.” Lyasa made a woeful face. “You are different. A little different.”

Cerryl made a bowing gesture with his right hand. “My deepest gratitude, lady mage. If you would but convey that to the absent lady who is your friend…”

Lyasa shook her head, then yawned and stood. “I need a nap or something.”

Cerryl rose and slipped toward the door.

“Whatever it is you do to keep her away, keep doing it.”

As if I’d ever dare to do anything else. “Your request is my command.” He put his hand on the door lever.

“Would that you had told me that before you met Leyladin.”

“That couldn’t happen. I’ve known her longer.” Cerryl smiled at Lyasa’s puzzlement as he opened the door. “Ask her.”