L. Modesitt - Colors of Chaos

Kinowin gave a soft laugh. “So you will make this problem mine?”

Encouraged by the open, humorous tone of the overmage’s laugh, Cerryl gave a wry smile. “Yes, ser. I do not know where else to turn, and you are far more capable at such than I.”

“Cerryl, that sounds like Anya. Why don’t you say what you mean?”

Cerryl swallowed. “It bothers me. I think it will not help the Guild. I don’t know why, but I feel strongly. Who else can I let know?”

“That’s more honest…and more disturbing.” Kinowin paced back to the other side of the room, pausing and fingering a green and silver hanging featuring interlocking triangles. “All I can say is that I will inquire, in my own fashion.” He turned and looked at Cerryl. “Is that enough?”

Cerryl stood. “Yes, ser. That’s all I can ask.”

“It’s more than you can ask, Cerryl, but I trust your feelings about the Guild. Now…let a poor overmage have a few moments to read.”

Cerryl stood, a rueful smile on his face. With a bow he left, heading back to the uncertainty of his room and a screeing glass that showed more and more and revealed less and less.

CERRYL LOOKED AT the chaos swirling across the glass, disrupting his search for Leyladin. Maybe he needed a moment of rest. He stood and paced back and forth across his room. Then he took a sip of water from the mug on the desk.

Finally, he reseated himself before the glass, but he could sense strong patterns of chaos, far closer than Lydiar-or Certis. Something was wrong in Fairhaven, perhaps even in the Halls…subtly wrong, and wrong at the moment. But what? Do you really want to know?

He looked down at the silvered mirror on the desk, hoping to trace out the wrongness through the glass. The mists parted, and Cerryl’s mouth opened as he saw the image in the glass.

Cracckkkk! The White Guard continued to lash the figure strapped facedown on the long table, and a line of red slashed across the legs.

A white-haired White wizard’s hands moved, as if to fight back something. The mage’s forehead shimmered with sweat, and he glanced at a mirror on a small table, tilted toward him.

Cerryl frowned, but he could not make out the image in the mirror. He could discern that the White wizard was Jeslek and that Anya stood beside him. The lash cut across the bare shoulders of the figure strapped on the table, and the prisoner shuddered.

The wizard frowned, glanced at Anya.

She shook her head and spoke briefly.

Instead of responding, Jeslek took a sip from a mug. His face tightened in concentration, and he nodded to the guard. The whip snapped across the woman’s bare back.

Jeslek wiped his forehead and nodded once more to the guard.

Another lash cracked across the woman’s back.

The smile on Anya’s face turned Cerryl’s guts, and he swallowed. By the time he looked again, the guard had unstrapped the unconscious woman and lifted her over his shoulders like a sack. The guard followed Fydel from the lower Tower room.

Cerryl quickly let the image lapse, hoping that Jeslek and Anya had been too preoccupied to notice or, if they had, too much so to determine which mage had been observing. Despite the chill in his room, sweat beaded across his forehead, and his guts still threatened to rise into his throat.

What can you do? You’ve told Kinowin, and if Jeslek finds out that you’re spying on him …

For a time Cerryl sat before the blank glass. Then he stood, squared his shoulders, and walked to the window, looking out as fluffy flakes of snow drifted down past the heavy glass.

After a time, he turned, wiped his forehead, and walked to his door, heading toward the fountain court. He stood by the archway for some time, knowing that Anya would come-should come-sooner or later.

At last, he sensed the wave of chaos that accompanied Anya as she crossed the front foyer of the Halls of the Mages and headed toward the fountain court.

Looking worried and as if he were not paying attention, he started across the courtyard at an angle, ignoring the snow that fluttered down and melted on the stones.

“Cerryl! Watch where you’re going. You almost ran into me.” Anya looked at Cerryl intently. “You meant to catch my attention.”

“Of course.” Cerryl grinned. “I couldn’t keep that from you.” The scent of sandalwood and trilia was almost overpowering, but he couldn’t let that distract him.

“But why?” Anya seemed genuinely curious.

“Do you have a moment?” He pointed toward the bench beyond the fountain before he realized, belatedly, it was wet. He stopped short of sitting as he drew her toward it.

“You intrigue me, Cerryl. A moment only.” Still, she followed him, and they both stood beside the bench.

The gray-eyed mage looked directly at Anya. “War or conflict takes force. If you kill the trader woman, you will force that Black smith, whatever his name may be-”

“Dorrin,” Anya said with an amused smile. “Dorrin.”

“To attack Fairhaven. Can’t you sense just how much order he embodies? He carries as much order as Jeslek does chaos.”

“Cerryl…you can see much, but there is a great deal which you do not see.” Anya flashed the bright and false smile. “Of course, the smith embodies great order. But you always did have a soft spot for victims. That was what caused you trouble with the Patrol. Let me assure you that the trader lady will return to her smith, and she will survive.”

“Then why did you have Jeslek torture her?”

“Cerryl…do you know what Jeslek would do to you if I mentioned this?”

The younger mage forced a smile, blocking his true feelings as he had learned to do so long before in order to survive. “Anya…I would tell him that you told me, and he would believe me.”

Anya’s smile faded. “You surprise me, Cerryl. What is the trader woman to you?”

“Nothing. I’ve never met her. I’m worried about Fairhaven.”

For a time the redhead studied Cerryl. Finally, a half-smile crossed her lips. “You really do. You really are like Jeslek. I never would have expected it.”

Cerryl distrusted the second smile, even more than the first.

“She will go back to her smith. Never fear. And nothing more need be said. Do you understand?”

Cerryl understood that he could not trust Anya, but that she told the truth so far as the lady trader’s return went. There was more there, but he didn’t know what else to ask or how to follow up on what he had learned. So he nodded.

“Good.” Anya turned and left him standing there.

Once she had left the court, Cerryl took a deep breath. What else could he have done? He couldn’t have approached Jeslek or Kinowin again, and certainly not Fydel. Only Anya was devious enough that she had enough to hide from Jeslek. You hope …

Slowly…he turned and started back to his room.

CERRYL STEPPED UP to the door, but it opened before he could lift the knocker, and Leyladin was in his arms. He held on for a long time.

Finally, she stepped back. “It’s cold out. You could come in.”

“I came as soon as I got your message.”

“I can see that.” She smiled, with a warmth that made him forget the chill and the slush in the streets through which he’d walked, then stepped back.

They walked into the sitting room to the right of the entry hall. A fire had been laid in the hearth, and the warmth was welcome to Cerryl. A faintly aromatic smell from the fire filled the air, not quite pine, but something resinous.

Leyladin settled onto the settee, and Cerryl sat beside her.

“It’s gotten cold and stayed that way.”

“It’s winter,” Cerryl suggested with a laugh.