Colors of Chaos (64 page)

The vested and bearded man turned to Cerryl. “Your lancer… he took out his blade and he threatened me. He said if I did not have my daughter… service him… he would kill us both.”

Cerryl glanced at the unbelted lancer, who had sheathed his sabre.

“It’s a lie!” yelled the lancer. “Ser,” he added quickly as he saw the white cloak.

“He said he would kill us both, I swear,” insisted the man with the curly beard and gold earrings.

Behind the two men were another pair of lancers, dragging a woman forward.

“What have you to say?” Cerryl’s gray eyes focused on the single lancer.

“They’re lying. She’s a trollop and a cutpurse and-”

“See this cut? Do you see it, ser mage?” demanded the man in the vest, pointing to a short slash across his chin that dripped blood onto a stained shirt that might have once been white silk and onto a dirty brown cloak. “Your lancer did this to me.”

Cerryl looked at the woman, struggling in the arms of two lancers who half-dragged, half carried her toward Cerryl, the subofficers, and the four lancer guards. One of the lancers lugging the woman kept looking down at her open cloak and ripped blouse, which showed half-exposed full breasts.

“He tried to kill me,” insisted the bearded man.

“They… she offered… They tried to kill me…” stuttered the accused lancer, glancing from the bearded man to the woman.

Cerryl fixed his eyes on the woman. “Did you steal the lancer’s Purse?”

“I stole nothing.”

“Did you offer yourself to him for coins?”

“He forced himself on me.” The woman drew herself up as much as possible with the two lancers restraining her.

“She had a knife, ser,” added one of the lancers holding the woman. “What about the knife?” Cerryl asked.

“I had no knife. What would I do with a knife against such a brute?” Cerryl smiled tiredly and turned to the lancers. “Bring her out into the street here. Let her go and stand away from her.”

The two men looked at each other, then frog-marched the dark-haired woman forward, abruptly releasing her.

Cerryl seized chaos and flung it, almost contemptuously. Whhhsst! Where the woman had stood was a pillar of fire.

The man in the green vest ripped himself out of the hands of the lancer and started to run.

Despite his headache, Cerryl forced himself to concentrate.

Whhssst! A second firebolt created another heap of flaming charcoal that subsided to white ash.

Cerryl looked at the stunned single lancer. “They lied. You did also, but not so much. If I find you like this again, you’ll join them.” His eyes went to the two unknown lancers - from Fydel’s forces probably, since he recognized neither. “Tell your comrades.”

“Yes, ser.”

Cerryl glanced at Ferek, then Hiser, before turning the gelding toward the low hill that held their quarters.

“Darkness-fired lucky, you were…”

“Coulda been you…”

“Fair… he is… cold as the Westhorns, too.”

Cold? Cerryl almost laughed, half in frustration. You’ll be the most disliked mage in Candar the way things are going. Or the second most disliked, after Jeslek.

He leaned forward and patted the gelding’s neck. Horses didn’t talk back or mutter behind his back. At least, his didn’t.

CXII

Chaos by itself guarantees neither prosperity nor the failure of prosperity; chaos guarantees but life, while order in excess must lead to death.

The nature of man is that of chaos, and not of order, for man is alive, as is chaos, and the goal of order is perfect stillness and all parts of a whole in an unchanging array.

Yet chaos unchecked is as ruinous to a prosperous land as order unchecked, and the excesses of man can be checked successfully only by the application of chaos bounded by order.

Order applied directly to that which is man will retard, if not destroy, that spirit of life nurtured by the flame of chaos; likewise, all life upon the world is nurtured by that flame of chaos that is the sun itself.

A land bound to chaos may fail to prosper, but it will not destroy itself, for chaos is as life; a land bound to order must, in the end, destroy itself, and all around it, for order is like the ice of the north in the times of the Great Chills, seeking always more order, until nothing lives within its scope.

A great mage must strive always to use chaos for prosperity, that is, growth and change bounded by the chill of order, yet never must he pay obeisance to order, for order will take his spirit and leave him a shell of what he might have been, as a mighty city empty of all souls, as a seed without kernel, as a hearth without flame…

Colors of White

(Manual of the Guild at
Fairhaven)

Part Two

CXIII

In the private study, empty while he waited for Teras, Cerryl stood over the conference table and concentrated. The silver mists of the glass swirled, then parted.

Leyladin stood in the corner of the front foyer of the Halls of the Mages in
Fairhaven. With her was the dark-haired Lyasa, and the two talked, apparently quietly, for there were few gestures. Abruptly Leyladin turned her head slightly and smiled but for an instant, and Cerryl knew she had sensed his presence through the glass. Lyasa raised her eyebrows, also momentarily, and Cerryl released the image.

He left the mirror glass on the table and walked through the archway from the small study into the front sitting room and up to the window, where he opened the shutter. Cold welled off the cloudy panes, intense cold, for all that little snow had fallen upon Elparta in the past eight-day.

The avenue beyond the front wall and the personal and carriage gates was empty for the moment. Cerryl shivered, though he was not cold, thinking of the lancers who had been disciplined and the villagers who worked for a few coppers-conscripted in effect-on restoring the walls and gates of Elparta. One instant Elparta had been a functioning city on the river, the next a ruin. Why? Because rulers disagreed… because the Guild insisted on existing and because people like Rystryr and Syrma and Estalin wanted golds more than prosperity for their people. And what of Anya and Jeslek? Are they any different, save that they seek power? Or the traders like Jiolt and Muneat?

Cerryl snorted to himself. “The snare of power is that you think you do it for prosperity for all when it is for your own benefit.”

“Ser?” asked the lancer standing inside the foyer.

“Nothing. A mage musing to himself.” As if it mattered, as if you will ever have that kind of power. He shook his head. You’re deceiving yourself. You have power, if not so much as a Jeslek. Still, he was having trouble with the limited power he had. He was trying to rebuild a city and keep order, and the lancers-at least some of them-hated him and the locals hated him because he represented Fairhaven.

And none of them really even understood Fairhaven. You think that’s surprising? Half the Guild doesn’t.

Teras stamped inside the front foyer, then closed the carved dark wooden door behind him. “Sorry being so slow, ser.”

“That’s all right.” Cerryl waited until the big lancer hung his riding jacket on one of the pegs in the foyer, then turned and walked back to the study, sitting at one of the chairs beside the conference table He gestured for Teras to sit down as the captain passed through the archway from the sitting room.

“Thank you, ser.” Teras kept his eyes on Cerryl as he seated himself carefully, gingerly, as if he feared the chair might break under him.

“How are the quarters’ houses faring in the cold?”

“About the same as barracks anywhere. Warmer than outside and colder than most would like, except for those raised in the hills, and they say it’s too hot.” Teras offered a rueful grin.

Cerryl nodded. “How are they finding the food?”

Teras shrugged. “They complain, but they know you eat what they eat. That suits them.”

The captain had not mentioned Fydel, and Cerryl decided against bringing that question up. Fydel was using coins gained somewhere to improve the fare served at his private table, and all the officers knew that.

“It’s plain,” Cerryl said with a laugh. “I’m trying to get some dried fruit and nuts and more cheese, and coins to buy more eggs from the locals.”

“You cannot take eggs from a peasant.” Teras laughed.

Not when you couldn’t even find the chickens, you couldn’t, reflected Cerryl. “Teras? Why do you think we’re here? In Elparta?”

“That’d not be wise of a captain to guess at the reasons of the High Wizards, ser. Begging your pardon.” A grim smile crossed the hulking lancer’s face, and Cerryl understood, again, why Teras remained a cap-tain and would always remain a captain.

“I understand.” In turn, Cerryl smiled. “From your viewpoint as a captain of lancers, after the work crews finish repairing the river walls, what should they do next?”

“Clear all the streets that yet have rubble in them. Let the locals repair dwellings as they wish or choose not to. Then if, as you say, the Guild and the lancers need to maintain a garrison here, we should have the workers build a proper barracks and stables. By the south gate, I would judge.”

“That may have to wait until after spring. I was charged with having the piers and the river wall repaired first, and work on the wall is slow,” Cerryl answered. “If I accompany the High Wizard in the spring, I will suggest the barracks to him.”

Teras nodded, as if he expected no more.

Cerryl almost frowned. Was that the answer? Spread out the members of the Guild so that their presence was accepted and understood- and backed with lancers as necessary? He wanted to laugh. While it might work, who would listen to him? All the powerful mages wanted to be in Fairhaven, where the prestige and the power seemed to lie. Is it that way in all lands?

He forced his attention back to the lancer captain and on learning what else he needed to know.

CXIV

The sound of the gelding’s hoofs was muffled by the span or so of snow that coated the cobblestones of the avenue from the south gate. Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, barely able to see the four lancers acting as his guards through the snow that had begun to fall as he had left the sawmill-snow and cold that helped block off the lingering odors of decay and death and pillaging, snow that gave him a headache, if not one so sharp as from rain.

Good thing you don’t need too much more in the way of lumber… not until spring, and then there won’t be enough. He hoped he could put off worrying about lumber until spring. He had enough other problems to Worry about-and far sooner.

Snow kept building up on the collar of his jacket, seemingly faster than he could brush it away, and then melting and oozing down his back. Because you didn’t think to wear a hat.

One of the next problems was rope. “How could anyone dock a boat or barge without rope?” Jidro had asked. Even the chandlery had none, or so little-fifty cubits’ worth of light line-as to be worthless.

And then there was the lack of firewood. With no real woodlots within a kay of Elparta and the snow getting deeper, stocks of seasoned wood were nearly gone. Fydel, of course, had merely insisted that it was Cerryl’s job to supply firewood-and everything else.

One supply barge had arrived from Gallos-surprisingly-but it had carried mainly barrels of flour and some excessively salted pork, and a half-dozen large rounds of cheese. The lancers might not starve, but they would complain, more than usual.

Cerryl swallowed the exasperation he felt, and his eyes flicked toward the last of the quarters’ houses on his left. Before long - another four hundred cubits or so-they would reach the street that led uphill toward the dwelling serving as his office and headquarters.

The faintest hint of a taper glimmered through cracks in the shutters of the dwelling ahead on the left-the house used by one of Senglat’s subofficers to house his company. Cerryl frowned, trying to recall the man’s name. No, it was a woman, one of the few subofficers who was. Jrynn, that was it.

“Ser… ?” The voice was soft, gentle… feminine

Cerryl turned his head, hesitating momentarily. He sensed not only a figure in the alleyway to his right blurred by the white curtain of snow and the all-too-early gloom of a winter’s eve but also a muted sense of chaos-and another form behind the first.

Thwunnnggg.

He threw himself sideways in the saddle even before the sound of the crossbow echoed off the walls and uneven stones of the narrow alleyway, then turned the gelding toward the figure-or figures. One reached for something-another crossbow?

Cerryl grasped for chaos, fighting the deadening effect of the snow, fighting the twisting in his guts, as the gelding quick-trotted toward the narrow passage between the ruined structures on the eastern side of the avenue.

Whhssstt! The muted, dampened firebolt seemed to crawl through the white curtain, and Cerryl struggled to gather more chaos, gasping as he did, almost as though he were underwater and fighting his way to the surface of a raging river.

He summoned more chaos, flinging it as well, silently, through the whiteness that seemed to retard and muffle his efforts.

Behind him, other mounts followed. “Ser? What is it! Ser?”

Cerryl reined up, abruptly, as the second figure toppled sideways, feet skidding sideways. Cerryl’s breathing was ragged, and he felt drained. The kind of effort he had raised should have destroyed an entire dwelling. It had not, only burned away part of the shoulder and chest of the woman who had called and the side of the man’s face and left a charred hole in his chest.

Cerryl tried to catch his breath. He looked at the two figures, almost sadly.

Once the woman had been beautiful, the man probably well built. The remnants of a uniform were visible under the ragged brown cloak.