L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

“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.

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 blonde 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 the 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 brass-work 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?

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.”