L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

Cerryl offered himself an ironic smile. If the smith but knew what change he had already wrought. That may be but the beginning . The smile faded into a frown as he neared the two subofficers.

“You don’t look too happy, ser,” observed Hiser.

“We get to find provisions-without pillaging and disrupting things,” Cerryl answered as he mounted. “So I suppose we’d better see if there are any traders left around.”

“Traders?”

“I’d rather have a local do the hard work. Besides, they probably know better where to find things-especially since we’ll be able to pay a little.”

“Where do we start?” asked Ferek.

“At that warehouse there.” Cerryl pointed toward a timbered building several hundred cubits to the west of the end of the quay.

When they rode up, Cerryl could tell the warehouse had been stripped. The door hung open, and the shutters had not even been closed. “We’ll try another.”

They tried almost a dozen. Of all the buildings that had held factors or traders, only the chandlery remained occupied, and a thin trail of smoke wound upward from the chimney.

Ferek gestured, and a lancer dismounted and pounded on the door. After a moment, the door, recently reinforced on the outside with heavy planks, opened a crack.

“Open for the mages of Fairhaven,” snapped Ferek.

A thin figure scuttled out under the overhang of the extended second story. “Sers…we have but little.”

“That’s what you all say,” said Ferek.

“Sers…true it is…true indeed.”

“You are the trader Willum?” asked Cerryl, reading the carved signboard.

“No, ser…”

“Where is he?”

“He…ser mage,” stammered the thin-faced figure, “he was killed by bandits more than a year ago. I was his clerk. I help his widow and young sons.”

Cerryl concealed a wince. He had no doubt who the bandits had been. He glanced toward Hiser. “Hiser, you and your men work with this fellow to round up whatever supplies are left. Have him keep track of them, and we’ll use his warehouse to store them.” Cerryl looked at the trembling clerk. “You work with us, and you and the widow and her children will be fine.”

“Yes, ser mage…yes, ser.”

“Thank you.” Cerryl nodded at Hiser, then turned to Ferek. “We need to check out the last two at the end of the short wharf there.”

Ferek remounted, and half the lancers followed as Cerryl rode through the summer heat toward the still water of the back harbor, not all that far from where the smith had launched his vessel.

The vessel was still at sea, for Cerryl could not find it in his glass and would not be able to do so, he suspected, until the smith ported, wherever that might be.

The sound of the lancers’ mounts echoed hollowly on the pavement, reminding Cerryl of just how deserted the city-or port town-had become. Was that what always happened in war?

He shrugged. He’d promised Leyladin to do what he had to do and say little, but he’d already said too much beyond that, he feared. His eyes landed on the warehouse ahead, apparently abandoned like the others. A long day…many long days to come .

CERRYL…WHAT DO you want?” Anya asked idly from where she stood by the railing of the White Flame beside Cerryl.

“What do you mean?” Cerryl’s eyes flicked from Anya toward the bow.

Just aft from the short forward raised deck, Fydel stood, the wind blowing his dark hair back, a big hand on a rigging cable, confident-appearing in the cool sea air under the bright green-blue sky.

“Jeslek wanted to be the greatest and most powerful White mage ever. What do you want?” Anya asked again.

The thin-faced mage glanced back at the headland beyond which lay Diev, now in the hands of Syandar. Eliasar had agreed that the three should return to Fairhaven with the amulet, but by ship, so that all the lancers could remain to help keep the peace in Spidlar. Cerryl had the feeling that the older arms mage had almost been happy to see them leave and allow him to get on with putting Spidlar firmly under the thumb of the Guild, as he had in Renklaar.

“I’m not sure I know,” Cerryl said. “I wanted to be a White mage ever since I was a child, and I am.” He shrugged and offered a wary smile.

“Cerryl, you have bigger goals than that.”

“Well…” Cerryl paused. “I think Fairhaven needs to be stronger for Candar to prosper, because none of the other rulers think beyond their own borders. If they don’t, sooner or later, Recluce will, in fact, rule Candar without ever sending a single armsman.”

“Do you see Prefect Syrma or Viscount Rystryr allowing that?” Anya laughed, a hard and brittle sound. “They will fight their endless little wars and slaver over a few chests of golds while their merchants sell all that is dear to the traders of Recluce.”

“If matters change not,” Cerryl conceded, “that will happen. I’d like to change matters. I cannot say I know how, or that I could even if I did possess that knowledge. Look at Jeslek.”

“You seem to be saying that Candar cannot prosper if the wars are endless,” Anya answered. “Do you really think anyone can change what people are? Most are greedy fools. The best are smart and greedy.”

“I can’t gainsay that, either,” Cerryl admitted. “That is why I cannot see any land, any force, but that of Fairhaven being able to impose rules that will allow prosperity for all. Nor will Candar prosper without the rules and harmony such as those of the White City.”

“Do you really think that is possible?” A touch of scorn colored her voice.

“Look at Fairhaven-or even Elparta. Neither has folk begging in the streets. They are cleaner, and the average soul is happier.”

“The traders are not.”

“In Fairhaven, the traders prosper.” Cerryl grinned in spite of himself, wondering just how Anya would twist the conversation to her ends.

“They’re as bad as those elsewhere and, given the chance, would build palaces on the backs of the poor and the Guild.”

“The Guild does not give them the chance.”

“The Guild cannot be everywhere.” Anya tossed her head as if to dismiss Cerryl’s observation. “Nor can it dictate everything to its traders, not if it wishes to hold to its powers.”

That observation bothered Cerryl, another feeling that, again, Anya had more to do with the traders than anyone in the Guild knew-or, at least, wanted to pursue. He refrained from shaking his head as he recalled how he had been dissuaded from following the missing trader and the stolen silksheen-although it was clear that trail had led to Jiolt, whose son was consorted to Anya’s sister.

As the White Flame pitched through a trough, Cerryl reached out and steadied himself on the rail.

“Let us say that you,” continued Anya, “or some High Wizard, does unite Candar or the east of Candar. After him, then what? More squabbles and wars? What is the purpose of such a great achievement? To end up withering away like Kinowin or Myral or being killed like Jeslek? Or to turn what you have done over to another like Sterol to dither it away?”

“You think so little of Sterol?” Cerryl smiled.

“Sterol is what Sterol is,” Anya responded. “Just as Jeslek was.”

After a moment, Cerryl spoke. “You asked me, but what do you want, Anya?”

Anya flashed the smile that Cerryl distrusted. “I think we want the same thing. We want something that gives meaning to what we have done-something that will have meaning after we are gone.” She shrugged. “Is that not what anyone wants?”

Cerryl mistrusted the shrug but remained silent.

“Some folk find such in their children, but that is hard for mages, and especially hard for a White mage interested in a Black.”