L. Modesitt: Colors of Chaos

“How is Myral?” asked Cerryl, not knowing quite what to say.

“Better today.” After a moment of silence, Leyladin offered a smile, somehow both shy and friendly. “Can you come to dinner? Tonight?”

“I’d like that.” Cerryl paused. “If you can wait a bit. I have to meet with Kinowin first. For the first season I do gate duty I have to talk to him after I finish. It shouldn’t take that long.”

A mischievous smile crossed her lips. “Father can wait that long.”

“Your father?” Cerryl’s throat felt thick.

“I’ve talked about you so much that he says he must meet you.”

Lucky me …He could sense a chuckle from Gostar.

“I’ll wait here with Gostar.”

Cerryl nodded. “I hope it won’t be long.” He went to the left, past the guards and the still-mute young messenger.

“Lady mage…true he killed the prefect of Gallos all by himself?”

“It’s said to be true.” Leyladin’s voice drifted after Cerryl.

“He looks…too nice…”

“…a quiet mage…”

Appearances-was one of his problems that he looked like a polite young scrivener and not a mage who would upset the world. They said that the Black mage Creslin had been small. Was that why he’d killed-or had to kill-so many? Cerryl squared his shoulders as he stepped up to the overmage’s door.

At the first thrap on the door, Kinowin replied, “Wait a moment, if you would, Cerryl.”

“Yes, ser.” Cerryl settled onto the bench outside the white oak door. Even if he hadn’t done that much, it had been a long day, a very long day. The gates opened to wagons at sunrise. His eyes closed…

“Cerryl?”

He jerked awake and bolted upright. “Oh…I’m sorry.”

Kinowin laughed once, gently. “That’s all right. Being a gate mage is more tiring than most realize. That’s why we give it to you younger mages. I wouldn’t want to do it.”

As Cerryl followed, still groggy, and closed the heavy door behind him, Kinowin walked to the window and looked out at the dark clouds looming to the east. Even the purple wall hanging seemed gloomy rather than striking.

Cerryl stood by the table, not wanting to sit down.

“Go ahead. Sit down.” Kinowin did not turn from the window. “It’s storming to the east.” After a moment, he turned. “How did your day go?”

“It was quiet. I’ve seen farm wagons and even a stone wagon, but not many other kinds. There are more passengers on the coaches, and they look like factors.”

“That should not surprise you.”

Cerryl couldn’t say he was surprised, but he also could not have said why he was not surprised.

“Do you know how the exchanges work?”

“Not very well. The factors make agreements to buy or sell goods in future seasons, sometimes for things that haven’t even been grown or mined.”

Kinowin stepped toward the table, then leaned forward and put his hands on the back of the chair. “The exchanges help smooth trade. I’d judge that is as good an explanation as any. The factors use the exchange in hopes of making coins or, when times are lean, to avoid losing too many coins. So…when things are unsettled, long before others realize there may be trouble, the factors are buying and selling those future goods. Will there be a famine in Certis or Southwind? The price of wheat corn two seasons from now goes up. The price of cattle goes down.”

“Ah…the price of cattle goes down?”

Kinowin shrugged. “If the fields are brown and bare and grain is dear, the farmers and the holders must sell.”

Cerryl wanted to shake his head. He’d never even considered such matters.

Kinowin flashed a sardonic smile. “To the blade’s edge, Cerryl. To the blade’s edge. The exchanges have been most busy lately. The price of future timber is going up. Do you know why?”

Cerryl looked at the overmage helplessly.

“Ships-it takes timber to build them, and they require the older, heavier oak and the long pole firs.”

Cerryl understood.

“You see? Then tell me what that means.”

“Well…if someone is building ships, but not so many traders are coming to Fairhaven, then they aren’t building trading ships, but warships…”

“Both Recluce and Spidlar are building more ships. I’d say for trade. Others…are building ships because they are losing trade.”

“Are we building ships? In Sligo?”

“Let me just say that I would be most surprised if the High Wizard had not contracted with the Sligan shipwrights for a few more vessels. That is something I would not mention to anyone.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Myral said you worked very hard to master a wide range of skills.” Kinowin looked hard at Cerryl. “In the times we are living in, I would suggest you continue to work hard. Being a gate guard offers some time and opportunities for practice. You might see if you could master the illusion of not appearing where you stand. Although I have some suspicions you know something about that.” Kinowin’s eyes twinkled. “You might see if you could refine your chaos senses even more-see if you can determine by sense alone every item in an incoming wagon. I won’t offer too many suggestions, but any skill you improve will improve others.” The big mage straightened and let go of the chair.

“Yes, ser.”

“I will see you tomorrow.” Kinowin turned back to the window and the still-darkening clouds. A rumble of distant thunder muttered over Fairhaven.

Cerryl closed the door behind him.

“…heard the door. Like as he won’t be long, lady mage. Your words are kind…”

“Just remember…” Leyladin straightened from her conversation with the young messenger.

Gostar was no longer one of the duty guards and had been replaced by a White Guard Cerryl didn’t know, a man with an angular face and a short-trimmed beard.

“Shall we go?” the blond healer asked. “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.”

Leyladin turned and bestowed a parting smile on the messenger, getting a shy and faint one in return.

“You’ve made another friend.” Cerryl glanced across the entry foyer of the front Hall as they descended the steps side by side.

“Most of them are lonely.”

Cerryl wondered. The children of the mages in the crèche had each other. He’d never even really talked to another child near his own age until he’d been apprenticed to Dylert. Erhana had been snobbish, but she’d helped him learn his letters, and without that, he never would have become Tellis’s apprentice-or been accepted into the Guild. Faltar had befriended Cerryl and become his first real friend, when Cerryl had first come to the Halls. That had been before Faltar had been seduced by Anya, but Faltar remained his friend. Friends were too hard to come by.

“You’re quiet.” Leyladin glanced at him. “Your childhood was lonelier, I know, but they’re still lonely.”

Cerryl almost stopped as he stepped off the last riser of the staircase and onto the polished stone floor tiles of the foyer floor but managed not to miss the step.

“That bothered you. Why?”

After a moment, he answered, “I just hadn’t thought of it quite that way.”

“I suppose I’ve had the luxury of being able to look at things without struggling for coins and food.” The blond shivered as they went down the steps to the walk beside the Avenue. “It’s gotten colder.”

“It has. Faltar said spring was coming.”

In the early evening, darker than usual with the overhanging clouds, the Avenue was near-empty, with a sole rider plodding northward and away from the Wizards’ Square. Cerryl fastened his white leather jacket halfway up as snowflakes drifted past them. He glanced over at Leyladin, wrapped in a dark green woolen cloak. Snowflakes-Cerryl didn’t expect such in spring. Then, it was early spring, and the new leaves had barely budded, while the old leaves had barely begun to turn from gray to green. He could feel the slight headache that came with storms, not so severe as with a driving rainstorm, more like the twinge of a light rain.