L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

“Every place has rules,” Cerryl pointed out, using his own dagger to cut the meat and then spear a chunk of the roasted potato. “That’s why we have the city patrol.”

“One of the mages who had been helping Eliasar when I became a student went with the Patrol. Klyat. He’d been an arms mage with the lancers.”

“What does he do?”

Faltar shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a while, and he wouldn’t say when I was a student. Keep the peace, I guess.”

Cerryl nodded but wondered. He’d seldom seen the patrols, for all the talk about them when he’d been an apprentice.

“Recluce has always been trouble, from the time of Creslin on.” Faltar chewed for a moment. “Now they’re even shipping stuff from Austra and Nordla, and some of it’s cheaper than what we can grow and make in Candar. Derka and Myral were always insisting we’re going to have trouble with Recluce. Then these Blacks show up. Of course, it could be coincidence. These things happen.” Faltar swallowed the last of his ale and lifted the mug.

“More?” asked the serving woman, drawn to the raised mug as a moth to light. “That’ll be two.”

Faltar fumbled out two coppers.

“Maybe…or it could be an order-chaos conflict.”

“You just found out about those, and now everything’s an order-chaos conflict.” Faltar laughed. “It could be trade.”

“What does trade have to do with three wandering Blacks from Recluce?” Cerryl sipped the red wine, not nearly so clear or so good as that he’d had at Leyladin’s house, trying to make it last.

“They could be spies. They’d been at the Traders’ Square, looking for work as blades, supposedly.”

“How did you find that out?”

Faltar raised his eyebrows. “I have my ways.”

“I don’t see that of young wanderers-they were young, weren’t they?”

“The healer didn’t look as old as you.”

“That young?” Cerryl grinned. “Not ancient like you?”

Thump! The second ale slopped on the table. “Here you be.” The server was leaving before she finished her words.

“Good ale.” Faltar took another swallow. “I’m glad you recognize the wisdom of your elders.”

“Maybe there’s something there…but I don’t think young travelers are the problem.”

“Perhaps they’re having troubles and throwing out more people. Did you think of that?”

“Then why would they be a problem for us?”

“I don’t know. But there’s something. There are shipwrights headed for Sligo…”

Cerryl looked hard at Faltar.

“Everyone in Fairhaven knows that,” protested Faltar. “I heard it in the square.”

“That may be…but if Kinowin-and he’s still in the corner there-heard you…”

“You’re probably right.” Faltar sighed and took another swallow. “Still doesn’t make much sense.”

Many things didn’t make sense to Cerryl. Fairhaven didn’t have a port that was really its own but maintained warships and relied on trade, but Hydolar had three ports and didn’t trade as much as the White City…and so it went.

He yawned. He felt like he happened to be yawning all the time. Was it just that the days were so long? Or was his practice with light daggers that tiring? “I suppose I’d better get back and get to bed.”

“Summer will be easier. They split the day into two duties…but if you get first duty you have to be there before dawn, and if you get the afternoon one you guard well into evening. I’m going to stay here a bit.”

“That’s fine.” Cerryl stood. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He walked slowly out, noting that Eliasar and Kinowin had been joined by another mage, one Cerryl didn’t know, but that the three were eating and apparently joking.

Although it was full dark outside on the Avenue, the evening was warmer than it had been earlier in the day. Maybe Faltar was right, that spring had come to stay.

Back in the rear hall, as he reached for the latch to his door, his eyes went to the white-bronze plate mounted on the wall, where the Old Tongue script spelled out: “Cerryl.”

Inside, he looked around-so much larger than any quarters he had ever had…and so bare compared to Leyladin’s house. Two real shuttered windows, a wide desk, a wooden armchair with cushions, a full-size bed with cotton sheets and a red woolen blanket-even a rug by the bed, a washstand, a white oak wardrobe for his garments, and a bookcase against the wall beside the desk.

He closed the door, but Kinowin’s advice continued to rattle around in his head-more skills. But what skills? He walked over to the bookcase and picked up his well-thumbed Colors of White , turning to the second half. He read slowly, skipping over the passages he’d read so well he knew them by heart, trying to find those he’d really not studied and those that had bored him. Finally, he settled into the chair, his jacket still on.

…in all of the substance of the world are chaos and order found, and oft are they twisted together, so tightly that none, not even the greatest of mages, can separate them. Yet were they separated, such chaos would be without end. For the world is of chaos, and all the substance of this world is nothing more and nothing less than chaos bound into fixed form by order…

Cerryl frowned. If he understood what the words said, the writer meant that anything, even the book itself in which the words were scrived, was nothing more than chaos bound into its form by order.

He scratched his head. Yet light was nearly pure chaos-or as pure as could be stood by living things. An involuntary yawn broke his concentration. Tomorrow would come early, far too early. He set aside the book and disrobed, carefully hanging out his clothes.

For a time, he lay there in the luxury of the wide bed, the words of Colors of White twisting in his thoughts…“were they separated, such chaos would be without end…were they separated…”

While tomorrow would come early, he could look forward to the day after. That was his, as was every fourth day, and then he wouldn’t have to struggle to rise before the sun with the predawn bells.

CERRYL STOOD AT the edge of the Meal Hall, almost empty and nearly too late to get anything to eat. Finally, he went to the serving table and took a large chunk of bread, some cherry conserve so thick it was like molasses, and a pearapple, slightly soft.

As he turned, Esaak beckoned from a side table. Cerryl’s heart fell. Was the older mage about to reproach him again for his mathematical deficiencies? He carried his platter and a mug of water toward the heavy and mostly bald mage.

“Young Cerryl…” Esaak shook his head. “You may be the worst mage in mathematicks in the history of the Guild.”

“I’m still reading the book, ser.”

“And doing the problems?”

“Only a few,” Cerryl confessed.

Esaak laughed. “Not all mages can be engineers or mathematicians. Just so long as you design no aqueducts or sewer tunnels.” The deep-set eyes peered at the younger man. “Have you thought about what you would pursue? You do not strike me as the type to be a gate guard or an arms mage. Especially not for years on end.”

The study of light …“I don’t know. I really don’t know what choices there might be. I know that Myral does much with water and sewers, and I think Kinowin follows trade, and you teach mathematicks…”

“Who taught Kinowin about trade, young Cerryl? I was watching ships unload in Lydiar and Renklaar before Kinowin was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. If you do not wish to spend your life supporting armsmen and lancers, you need to find a skill valuable to the Guild. Jeslek…he has studied the depths of the earth. How do you think he knows how to raise mountains?”