The White Order (36 page)

Cerryl set the small glass on his desktop and pulled up his stool, looking blankly at the silver surface that reflected the books on the shelf.

   What did he know? Know well enough to call up in the glass?

   Cerryl concentrated on Dylert's mill, trying to envision the barns and the mill and the house, trying to draw that image from the light that was chaos and permeated all the world.

   The glass seemed to shiver before it clouded with white mists. Slowly, slowly, in the middle of the mists, appeared the door to the mill and a wagon on which a red-haired man loaded timbers from the lumber cart. Cerryl concentrated on seeing the redhead, and the image grew until only the man, the lumber cart, and the side of the wagon filled the glass.

   Brental's face bore lines Cerryl did not remember, and the once-bright red beard was filled with white streaks. He did not smile as he lifted timber after timber, almost mechanically.

   Cerryl found sweat oozing from all over his face, collecting in the thin wisps of hair on his jaw and chin that might become a beard someday. Then he let go of the chaos light he had focused on the glass, and took a deep breath.

   How long had it been since he had seen Brental in person-more than four years? Enough to bring white to his beard?

   Cerryl took another slow and long breath, this time trying to recall and focus on the kitchen and the long trestle table where he had eaten so often.

   The second image came more easily, but Cerryl was still sweating as the silver mists formed and then ringed the view in the glass.

   Dyella stood by the hearth. Her once-brown hair was streaked with silver. Beside her stood a young woman, a woman with a round face and black hair woven into a single braid wound into a bun on the back of her head.

   Four places were set at the table.

   Cerryl frowned as he released the image. The black-haired woman had to be Brental's consort. Matters could not be going well for Dylert- not with Brental's haggardness. Yet there was nothing that Cerryl could do. He had no coins beyond .a silver and a handful of coppers, and no way to help the mill master. He thought of the four places at the table and swallowed.

   He studied the blank glass again, feeling helpless.

   Jeslek had suggested that he attempt to use the glass to find images along the Great White Highway. How should he start? How could he start?

   He thought about Tellura, the town that he hadn't known about that had resulted in his having to draft the map of eastern Candar for Jeslek. Then he squared his shoulders and concentrated once more.

   All he got was a set of swirling silver mist in the glass-and even hotter. He let the mists vanish and got up from the stool, then walked to the bed, where he stood on the end and tried to push back the shutters even wider to get some air, but the day was so still that not a breath of air entered the small cell.

   He went back to the screeing glass and sat down. He tried to call up the image of the white road into Fairhaven. While slightly blurry at first... that effort worked, and he let the image lapse.

   Cerryl wiped his forehead again, trying to keep the sweat from running into his eyes. He blinked. His entire head ached. He closed his eyes and sat before the desktop for a time, until the sharpest of the twinges had subsided. Then he opened his eyes, stood, and stretched. He couldn't go back to using the glass immediately, even if he were far, far from the expertise that Jeslek wished.

   After opening the cell door and stepping into the cooler corridor, he walked slowly down the corridor toward the commons, which was empty, except for Bealtur, who sat alone at one of the tables, poring over a thick volume Cerryl didn't recognize. Cerryl turned toward the open windows, which offered no breeze, blotting his still wet forehead with the back of his forearm. “Cerryl?”

   Cerryl turned. “Yes, Bealtur?”

   “I'm sorry.” The hazel eyes twitched, and Bealtur's hand went to the thin dark goatee. “I didn't know Kesrik meant something like that.”

   Cerryl forced a pleasant smile. “I do not think many expected that. I didn't.”

   “Well... I am sorry. I wanted you to know that.” Bealtur looked almost like a whipped dog.

   “I understand.” Believe me, I do.

   “Cerryl? What are you doing here?” Faltar trudged into the commons, a set of books under his arm. “What are you doing here? I thought you were out in the sewers.”

   Faltar gave a grim smile and lifted the leather-bound books. “Esaak and Broka prevailed on Derka and Myral. One morning a week for them. That's today.” He slid into the chair at the table next to the one used by Bealtur. “Esaak even said continuing studies had benefitted you...”

   Cerryl gave the blond student a wry smile. “I'm sorry.”

   “I don't know which is worse-mathematicks and anatomie or the sewers.”

   “The sewers,” suggested Cerryl. “The sewers.”

   “Cerryl is right,” added Bealtur. “Especially now, when it is so hot and the odor in the tunnels leads you to retch. I was there last summer.” He shook his head.

   “You two are so cheerful about studies.” Faltar sighed and looked down at the books. At the sound of steps, his eyes turned. Leyladin, Lyasa, and Anya walked by the archway to the commons together. A smile crossed his face.

 
 “I can tell where your thoughts are,” said Cerryl.

   “And yours aren't? You're smiling, too.”

   “There's not much I can do about it. I'm only a student. Besides, I suspect that those who are in higher places have a greater claim.” Cerryl tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

   “With Leyladin? Neither Sterol nor Jeslek could touch her. Maybe not Fydel or Myral, either.” Faltar grinned. “It's good to see that you are like the rest of us-just that you don't show it.”

   Cerryl frowned. “But she's pretty. Why couldn't they?”

   “She's a black or gray-healers have to be. Touching, and you can't take a woman without touching her, would be pretty painful-for both of them.” Faltar winced. “They're filled with chaos.”

   “They say old Chystyr was into that, but he looked like he had lasted three generations, and he didn't have forty years when he died two years ago,” Bealtur added from the adjoining study table.

   Cerryl felt his heart sink. Did it have to be that way? He groped for words. Even though he already knew the answers, he had to say something. “Then... why does Myral instruct her? Or Sterol allow her around?”

   “Someone has to instruct her, and Myral is the one who probably has the most experience. Sterol... how could he do otherwise?” Faltar glanced toward the corridor. “I'm hungry. Do you want to see if there's any bread left out?”

   “They had two dark loaves a while ago,” suggested Bealtur. “I had some.”

   As his stomach growled, the young mage nodded to himself. “That sounds good.” He still had to practice with the glass, but that could wait, would have to wait until after he scrounged something to eat from the meal hall. He turned down the corridor, thinking again about the glass and how much he had to learn.

As the chestnut carried him back toward Fairhaven, and the Halls of the Mages, Cerryl rubbed his forehead, which ached, because he couldn't message his posterior, which also ached from all his bouncing in the saddle. Sitting in the hard leather saddle, he still felt very high, and very exposed, even after almost ten kays of riding to and from the water tunnel. He kept having to relax his fingers because he found them gripping the leather of the reins far too tightly.

   Eliasar had stuck him on a horse several times, but that hadn't prepared him for the five-kay ride out to the point north of Fairhaven where the aqueduct went underground and became the main water tunnel for the city. He glanced ahead at Jeslek, and Leyladin, who rode silently beside the white mage with an ease Cerryl envied. Even Kochar, riding beside Cerryl, seemed relatively at ease on horseback. Cerryl shifted his weight. The saddle felt hard, and it had felt hard from the first few cubits the chestnut had carried him right after breakfast.

   He glanced to the west, where the sun hung over the hills, then to the white granite road that sloped gently toward the north gates of Fairhaven.

   Cerryl still had to wonder why Leyladin had been required. He could sense as well as she had the residual chaos of sludge and mold in the cracks in the stone of the tunnel that could have poisoned the water had it been allowed to grow.

   Before they had left the Halls, Jeslek had said, “There's a difference between what you might call honest chaos and the kind of chaos that poisons the water. That's something that usually only healers can feel.”

   For all of what Jeslek had said, cleaning the water tunnel had been little different from cleaning the sewers-except for checking more carefully to ensure there was no sign of slime or mold. Yet Jeslek had insisted that cleaning the aqueduct required a black or gray mage who was a healer. Cerryl wondered why-he had sensed the flux type ° chaos that Leyladin had pinpointed. He frowned. Could it be that neither Jeslek nor Kochar had? He couldn't very well ask.

   Cerryl massaged his left shoulder with his right hand, hanging on to the front run of the saddle-and the reins-with his left.

   By the time they passed through the north gates, Cerryl's thighs were cramping. The even half-score of white lancers followed the group down the avenue, and despite the late afternoon sun, Cerryl could feel even more sweat oozing down his back. The day had been hot, though much of it had been spent in the comparative cool of the water tunnel, and forecast a warm harvest season indeed.

   He glanced ahead again at Leyladin, still riding easily beside Jeslek, then at Kochar. The redheaded student looked over with a smile and said in a low voice, “Remember, relax. Don't fight it.”

   How did one not struggle to stay in the saddle? Cerryl wondered. It was easy enough for Kochar to say, but another thing to manage. Cerryl took a deep breath and tried to study the grain exchange building as they rode past. Only a single carriage stood by the mounting blocks, cloaked in the building's shadow.

   Nor did the artisans' square look any different from any other afternoon, with a handful of buyers, and a single apprentice running up the side street in the direction of Tellis's shop.

   Before long, Cerryl reined up and glanced wearily around the front of the stables. Jeslek, Kochar, and Leyladin had already dismounted. A pair of stable boys led Kochar's and Leyladin's mounts into the stable, and they walked back around the north side of the stable toward the eastern courtyard.

   A white-bearded man in blue stepped out from the late afternoon shade of the overhang. “You getting off that mount, ser?”

   “Oh... yes.” Cerryl swung awkwardly out of the saddle, and his legs almost buckled as his feet came down on the hard stone of the courtyard. He looked back at the big chestnut dubiously, wondering if he would ever get used to riding, then followed the others back to the east side of the stable.

   “So you decided to rejoin us, Cerryl?” Jeslek did not smile as he spoke.

   “I'm sorry, ser. I'm not as good a rider as you are.” That was certainly true.

   “Well, you're all here, and you did a good day's work-all of you.” Jeslek's youthful face, as always, belied the white hair and the sun-gold eyes. “Right after breakfast again tomorrow.”

   Kochar took a deep breath. Leyladin and Cerryl exchanged glances as Jeslek turned and left.

   Then, with a nod, Kochar also turned and left.

   “You haven't ridden much, have you?” Leyladin smiled sympathetically. At least Cerryl hoped the smile was sympathetic.

   “No. Eliasar stuck me up on a gentle beast a couple of times and let me ride around the streets. That was about it.” Cerryl glanced toward the entrance to the courtyard, the one leading back to the main section of the Halls of the Mages, then at Leyladin. “Ah... I had a question.”

   She smiled. “No ... I'm not Myral's lover. Nor Jeslek's. Myral's a sweet, but not to my taste. Jeslek's not to my taste, either, but that wouldn't stop him. I'm a gray, almost a black, and that does stop him because that wouldn't work.”

   “Ah ...” Cerryl found himself flushing furiously. “That wasn't... my question.”

   “That may not have been the question you were going to ask.” She grinned. “But it was on your mind.” She waited. “Wasn't it?”

   Cerryl found himself blushing again.

   “I'll take that for a yes. Now ... what was the question you were going to ask?”

   “I could see the kind of chaos you were finding in the tunnel. Can't all whites?”

   The blonde shook her head. “Myral could. Faltar might be able to. You clearly can. Once a white mage surrounds himself-or herself- with chaos, it's really hard for most of them to sense lower amounts of pure physical chaos, like the stuff that grows in the sewers or the water runnels.” She cocked her head and looked at Cerryl, almost as if she had not quite seen him before. “That could be a useful thing for you. I wouldn't tell anyone, though.”

   “Thank you.” He gestured toward the archway. “Would you like to eat...?”

   “I would.” Leyladin smiled. “But it will have to be another time. Tonight, I promised my father I'd have dinner with them. It's his natal day.”

   “Well... I hope you have a good meal.” Cerryl offered a smile in return. “It's probably better than in the halls.” He paused. “You don't have to eat here, do you?”

   “No. And I sleep at home. But I can't be a full member of the Guild, either, not as a gray or black.”

   “Oh...”

   “Like everything, it has its advantages and disadvantages.” She nodded. “I do have to go.”

   Cerryl watched as her green-clad figure vanished through the archway that led to the southern part of the avenue. Why had the glass drawn him to her, so many years earlier? He was drawn to her, like iron to a lodestone, and even now, he wasn't quite sure why. It wasn't lust. Not just lust... anyway ...

   He watched where she had gone. Then he turned and walked slowly toward the meal hall, conscious that his thighs still ached. So did his rear, and his head.

   More riding tomorrow? He winced.