L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

After washing up, he left his quarters and headed for the White Tower. The corridors were mostly empty, although he did pass the thin-faced apprentice Kiella in the fountain courtyard. “Good day, Kiella.”

“Good day, ser.” Her eyes did not meet Cerryl’s, and she stepped aside quickly to let him pass, even with the space afforded by the otherwise-empty courtyard.

Cerryl nodded to the ginger-bearded Redark as the two passed in the foyer of the main Hall. Redark inclined his head in return, although his pale green eyes bore a faintly puzzled expression, as if he wondered who Cerryl might be.

Gostar-strangely, the only guard at the lower Tower door, since there were usually two and a messenger-nodded as Cerryl reached the top of the steps from the foyer and approached him. “Good day, ser. You liking Patrol duty?”

“I’ve walked over most of the southeast part of Fairhaven,” Cerryl admitted.

“You met my brother?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know you had a brother in the Patrol.”

“Name’s Lostar.”

“I don’t think so, but I haven’t met every patroller yet, and I don’t know all the names of those I have met,” Cerryl admitted. “I’m supposed to, but I haven’t gotten that far.”

“Looks like me.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Cerryl glanced toward the steps. “You know if Myral’s in?”

“Most times I wouldn’t, but he just walked up a bit ago. Alone.” Gostar grinned. “The High Wizard went somewhere in his coach. Didn’t look so happy, but he hasn’t lately. They say he’s been getting scrolls from Overmage Jeslek.”

“He’s raising more mountains in Gallos, I think.”

Gostar looked down. “Not one to say…don’t seem as natural-like, though, ser.”

“Neither chaos nor order taken to extremes is natural, Gostar. Sometimes necessary, but not natural.” Cerryl grinned. “That’s what Kinowin always says.” Not that Kinowin or Myral phrased it quite that way .

Gostar looked up as boots sounded on the stones. A second guard appeared, one Cerryl did not know.

“Gostar…Oh, sorry, ser.”

Cerryl smiled. “That’s all right.”

As the new Patrol mage headed up the stairs, he could pick up the first fragments of the conversation.

“…wish the messenger’d get back. Hate running up and down for all of them…”

“…go next time…”

“…which mage was that?”

“…named Cerryl…one of the real ones…say he was an orphan, sawmill brat…taught himself letters…made him a Patrol mage couple of eight-days ago…”

“…tough little bastard then?”

“…can hold his own, I’d say.”

Tough little bastard? Cerryl wasn’t at all sure about that, except maybe the “little” part.

Thrap! He rapped on Myral’s door, conscious that he wasn’t even winded from the steps. Maybe all the Patrol walking did have some benefits. “It’s Cerryl.”

“Oh…you can come on in.”

Myral sat before the windows, half-shuttered, though the room was warm, sipping from a mug. Cider, Cerryl suspected, since that was almost all the older mage drank and the early apples had already been picked. Cerryl sat across the table from the half-bald, black-haired older mage.

“What can I do for you, now that you’re in the Patrol?” Myral took a sip from his mug.

“I was just thinking. Do you know if that smuggler’s entrance to the sewers was ever bricked up?”

A faint smile crossed Myral’s mouth. “You still worry about sewers?”

“We found a dead body at the end of the sewers, in the tunnel just up from the treatment ponds. He was killed from chaos burns, then dragged inside.”

“That’s what the chaos locks are for,” Myral said evenly, a hint of a smile behind his words. Abruptly the older mage coughed, several times, each cough more racking than the last.

Cerryl was on his feet before the attack subsided. “Are you all right?”

“No. But there’s little enough you or I can do.” Myral offered a wan smile. “The malady is age…age and chaos, as I have often told you.” He blotted his mouth and lips with the heavy gray cloth. “You were asking about the tunnel. It has not been bricked up, and it will not be. Oh, you may find a line of bricks before the door in the basement of the factor’s building adjoining it, but there will be another tunnel to it.”

Cerryl nodded. He had thought as much.

“You do not look surprised, Cerryl. In ten years, you are the first merely to nod.” Myral chuckled. “You may yet vindicate Kinowin’s judgment.”

“Who uses the tunnel, and what would happen if I caught them?” He didn’t think it was wise to ask what Kinowin’s judgment had been.

“A number of people doubtless use that door and tunnel, if infrequently, and I have no idea who they might be, though I tried for several years to determine just that. The only way to discover that would be to spend several dozen eight-days down there, and neither I nor the Guild had such time. As for catching them…those you caught would either be killed trying to escape or end up as road prisoners. There have been more than a score of such in the last few years.”

Cerryl let himself lean back in the chair, waiting.

As the silence drew out, Myral coughed once, then began to speak. “The sewers keep Fairhaven clean and mostly free of the flux. They also offer roads for those who do not wish to be seen-if they will pay the price. Of course, they don’t. They force some enemy or fool to open the grates. Now, what would happen if we bricked up that entrance?”

“They’d create another?”

“Precisely. And where might that be?”

Cerryl shrugged. He didn’t know.

“Neither would I nor Sterol nor Kinowin nor Isork. Before long, we’d have masons in the sewers all the time. Actually, there are two such entrances to the sewer tunnels. The other one is in the northwest, on a secondary collector off the west main tunnel. We resist, even trap with chaos, any other attempts to breach the tunnels. Those we leave alone. It works better that way. There will always be smuggling and smugglers-so long as there are tariffs or taxes, or rules on goods. This way, only those with golds are successful-”

“Or those who carry goods on their bodies or in packs.”

Myral nodded.

“How much smuggling is necessary?”

“Smuggling is unnecessary and to be frowned upon,” Myral declaimed, spoiling the ponderous tone with a smile that followed his words.

“You mean we can’t stop it entirely? So we have to keep it limited to small quantities or those who have enough coins to exercise some degree of restraint?”

“I am not certain I could have said it quite so elegantly, young Cerryl. But, yes, that is the problem that has always faced the Guild.” Myral coughed once again, more than a gentle sound, but less than the spasms that had racked him before.

“So I should be cautious?” Cerryl glanced past Myral to the clouds that seemed to be building north of the city.

“Any time you deal with people who would kill others for mere coins, or for power that will vanish even before they do, I would proceed with great caution.”

The mention of power that vanished was enough for Cerryl.

Myral coughed once more, then again.

Noting the paleness of the older mage, Cerryl asked, “Can I get anything? Should I send a messenger for the healer?”

“No. She was here earlier. There is little more she could do this day.”

“Then you should lie down.” The younger mage rose. “I will not tire you more.”

“You tire me not. It is good to feel my advice and words are still worth heeding.” Myral took a deep wheezing breath. “Still…some rest might aid.”