L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

The lowest tier of ponds remained covered mostly with water lilies, and the cleansed water flowed over the granite lips on the south side of the ponds and into another granite channel that led to the Haven River. Although Cerryl would not have wished to drink the cleansed water, Myral had often assured him that it was far cleaner than the water used for drinking in any other city in Candar. That reminded Cerryl to chaos-clean water from anywhere else in Candar or drink ale or wine.

“Glad we don’t have to supervise that.” Duarrl gestured toward the sewage workers. “Just provide the prisoners and a few guards.”

“Disciplinary duty?” asked Cerryl.

The lead patroller nodded. “Little things-not showing up for duty, the first time, or being late a couple of times.” He grinned at Cerryl. “The mages who supervise-they tell me that’s disciplinary duty, too.”

“So I’ve heard. I’ve not had to do refuse duty.”

“Well…let’s go.” Duarrl turned and motioned to the four patrollers.

Cerryl and Duarrl walked down the granite steps to the landing that held the grated bronze door covering the entrance to the sewer walkway. A second bronze grate covered the sewer tunnel itself, a grate that angled from the tunnel top out over the stone lip where the sewage dropped into the twin channels that split and carried the sewage to the two settling ponds. Two hundred cubits to the west was another tunnel and door.

Cerryl frowned as he studied the grated bronze door, then glanced at the stones of the extended walkway. He extended his senses to the gate, then turned to Duarrl. “Do you have a key? I turned mine in when I left sewer duty.”

Duarrl fumbled through the ring on his belt. “Here…I think that’s it.” He looked at the gate and then at Cerryl. “You think…?”

Cerryl smiled apologetically. “Someone’s opened the gate, and not too long ago. There’s blood on the stones and no chaos in the lock.”

“Fellows,” Duarrl turned, “we might have a problem here.”

Cerryl turned the key and levered back the oversized grate door. He stood for a moment looking into the gloom. Behind him, four blades slid from their sheaths. After relocking the gate open, Cerryl squinted momentarily, then extended his order senses. Someone had been in the sewer tunnel recently-very recently.

At the end of the tunnel by the grate door, the walkway was wider than in the tunnels under the White City itself-nearly three cubits, almost wide enough for a cart, if a small one. At that thought, Cerryl looked down. Was there a trace of wheels in the slime?

“Ser? Ah…we can’t see in the dark.” Duarrl sounded apologetic. “If you’d wait a moment until I get a striker out…”

“I didn’t know the patrollers carried lamps.”

“Have to be two lamps with every patrol.”

“Just hold out the lamps, then.” Cerryl turned and waited for Reyll and Churk to extend their lamps. Hyjul and Saft stood back, as did Duarrl.

Whst! The tiny firebolt lit the first lamp wick. A second firebolt flared Churk’s lamp into light.

“That do?” asked Cerryl.

“Ah…yes, ser.”

Cerryl could sense something, rubbish, a bundle, something, on the walkway perhaps thirty cubits ahead. As he walked, he began to gather chaos around him-not to him, as Jeslek might have done, but around him.

A scraping sound echoed down the wide tunnel, but not loud enough for a man. Cerryl could sense something on the walkway, and the sickening rotting odor was far worse than just sewage. The scraping had probably been rats.

“Let’s have a lamp. There’s nothing alive here.”

Churk’s small lamp was enough to reveal what Cerryl had feared.

Cerryl wanted to gag but swallowed silently. The corpse had been a man-he thought, although the stench was worse than that of the sewage that gurgled in the tunnel beside the walkway. The figure wore rags, but anything else-boots, belt, purse-had been stripped. His face and chest had been burned, so much that the features were an unrecognizable blackened mass.

“They forced him to open the lock,” opined Duarrl.

“There are traces of chaos,” Cerryl said. “Not a lot of blood. He probably died when the chaos exploded out of the lock.”

Duarrl bent down but did not touch the body. “There’s nothing on him. Not a thing.” He straightened, then looked at Cerryl. “Might as well get rid of it. Can’t see who it was. No sense in burying it.”

Cerryl swallowed, then let the chaos swell, before releasing it.

WHssst!

When the flare of light subsided, all that remained was drifting ash, and a single copper lying on fire-scoured stone.

“They missed a copper.” Duarrl snorted. “Churk…your turn, if you want it.”

The flaxen-haired Churk bent down gingerly.

“Careful…” Cerryl cautioned, “It will be hot.”

“Thank you, ser.” Churk set his blade aside and took out a leather glove and picked up the coin, then straightened. “Hot enough that there be no flux clinging to it.”

“No,” said Duarrl. “Let’s see if we find anything else ahead. Doubt that we will, but you never know.”

Churk walked ahead, lamp in one hand, shortsword in the other.

After nearly four hundred cubits, past one set of stairs to a locked overhead grate, Duarrl stopped. “Not going to find anything now. Let’s head back.”

As they turned and started back in single file, Cerryl glanced through the gloom at Duarrl. “What do you think they were smuggling? They used a cart-a small one-but it was heavy enough.”

“You could tell it was a cart?”

“There were traces…The wheels crushed some of the slime. That makes another form of chaos.”

Someone swallowed in the darkness.

“See why you don’t underestimate mages, fellows?” Duarrl laughed before looking toward Cerryl. “If they had a cart, had to be something heavy. Couldn’t be finished goods, like woven wool or the like. Take too long to get the smell of sewer out. Arms of some sort, I’d guess. Maybe oils or perfumes. Had to be something worth killing over. Though folks like that’d kill for a few silvers.”

Their steps echoed hollowly down the tunnel over the gurgle of the sewage as it pulsed toward the treatment ponds.

Once everyone was out, Cerryl took Duarrl’s key. “I’ll need one of these.”

“You’ll have it tomorrow, ser.”

“Good.” Cerryl locked the grated door closed, returned the key, then forced himself to gather an enormous bolt of chaos, forcing it into the heavy lock.

“This time…there won’t be just one body.” He kept his voice low enough so that only Duarrl could hear his words.

The lead patroller nodded.

To the west, the prisoners continued to fill the wagon with the sludge from the empty settling pond.

“We’ll need to watch this more often,” Duarrl said to Cerryl as they walked back to the sewer building-and the waiting horses.

Cerryl nodded. He had his own ideas. He doubted that the old entrance to the sewers off the Avenue-the one where he’d been attacked by brigands-had ever been sealed and he had to wonder why.

CERRYL PICKED UP the note that lay on his bed, looking at the handwriting on the folded parchment-parchment, not the cheap brown paper used by some merchants. “Cerryl,” he murmured as he read the single name on the outside. Then he smiled as he saw the green wax seal. He broke it and read quickly, smiling more broadly at the green ink.

…returned to Fairhaven last night, and Father and I would like to have you for dinner tonight. According to Myral, you have not been assigned evening duty with the Patrol yet, and so we are hoping to see you tonight…

The note was signed with a flowing green “L.” Cerryl folded it carefully, walked to his desk, and slipped it into the covered box that held his papers, including some few notes he had penned out on various subjects.