L. Modesitt - The White Order

How could there not be a Guild? Cerryl shifted his weight and glanced toward the window, but the closed shutters blocked the view of the avenue stretching northward toward the artisans’ square.

“All things pass, young Cerryl, and the Guild will also, as will Fairhaven, and mad chaos-wielders will roam Candar, for the mad attain their powers more quickly.” Myral shook his head. “This I have seen. . but it will be many generations.” He reached for the pitcher and poured still steaming cider into the other mug and extended it to the younger man. “I have been remiss, and the room is draft-ridden.”

Cerryl sipped the hot cider gratefully.

“What has this meandering of an old mage to do with the sewers?” The sadness vanished with a forced smile. “The sewers are where you all learn to wield and control chaosforce. If you fail, only you suffer.”

Cerryl could see that.

“There are two aspects to sewer duty-three if you count maintenance, but there your job is to protect the masons. You must learn to bring forth chaos-force under control, and you must learn to develop a shield against that force-either that which you raise or that raised by others.

“The greatest mages-not the most heralded but the greatest-are those with the strongest shields. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.”

All of the mages did that-they left puzzles for the students to figure out. Was that an ongoing test, or just because they were busy doing other things?

“You are not to attempt shielding or raising chaos-force anywhere except in the sewers or when directed by me or an overmage.”

“Are overmages the ones with the sunbursts?”

“Do you know why none of you are told that? Because the Guild doesn’t care much for hotheads.” Myral nodded, almost to himself. “Caution is called for when handling chaos.” Myral smiled. “Did you know that Anya was sent to scare you?”

“To see if I would flee?”

“And Kinowin was given instructions to let you have the illusion that you might be able to escape. He didn’t like that.”

Cerryl felt half vindicated, half dazed.

“The sewers will be harder than that.” Myral lifted the steaming cider. “To a warmer tomorrow.”

Cerryl lifted his own mug, inclining his head to the rotund mage, knowing there was little else he could do.

UNDER THE CLEAR skies and with the bright sun on his back, Cerryl still felt cold because of the chill wind that blew out of the northwest, almost into his face. He and Myral walked westward on the side avenue, followed by two of the white guards.

Next to a blank white granite wall-the side wall of a warehouse of some sort-Myral stopped and knelt by the bronze sewer grate. The older mage fumbled with his purse before extracting a large bronze key.

“Cerryl.”

Cerryl bent down.

“Watch what I do with the key. Use your senses.”

Cerryl could sense a point of chaos within the heavy bronze lock, and he watched as a darkness built up around the lock before Myral turned the key and opened it.

“Lift the grate.”

Cerryl struggled and lifted the grate, discovering that it opened on a pair of hidden hinge pins nearly as thick as his wrists.

“Swing it back against the wall.”

When the grate was against the wall, another bronze ring protruding from the building wall extended through the bars of the grate. Myral relocked the grate in the open position and returned the key to his purse. The two guards stood back from the square opening.

“Did you see what I did?”

“You did something with darkness there.”

“Exactly.” Myral smiled. “All sewer locks are charged with chaos. I’ll explain in a moment.” He turned to the guards. “Remain here until we return.”

“Yes, ser.” The older and grizzle-bearded armsman nodded.

Myral stepped onto the top stair within the circular opening and started downward.

Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, back at the bronze grate that Myral had locked open, and at the pair of white lancers guarding the entrance to the main sewer tunnel. A faint smile crossed the lips of the taller and younger guard, then vanished.

Looking back down, Cerryl followed the older mage into the darkness barely lit by the oil lamp Myral carried down the narrow and unrailed brick staircase. Their boots clicked on the hard bricks.

The first odors-a mixture of barnyard and fish and rotten meat, or worse-almost gagged Cerryl.

“You’ll get used to it,” Myral called back over his shoulder.

Never. . I hope not . Cerryl swallowed and kept heading downward, trying not to think about the source of the foulness.

At the bottom of the stairs, Myral took several more steps before he turned and waited.

The main sewer was a square tunnel of red glazed bricks whose braced and squared granite arches were a good two cubits above Cerryl’s head as he stood at the foot of the narrow staircase. On the left side was a walkway, about two cubits wide, except where the cubit-wide stairs descended. To the right of the walkway was the drainage way that carried the sewage, the surface of the turbid waters another cubit or so below the walkway.

“In storms, the waters can rise halfway up the staircase.” Myral paused, then added, “You don’t work in the sewers during heavy rains.”

The younger man looked back at the stairs, imagining all that filthy water rushing through the tunnels.

“The secondary sewers are just tall enough to walk in-sometimes-and the collectors for them are little more than covered and glazed brick trenches anywhere from one to two cubits square.”

Cerryl decided not to ask how he was supposed to clean the collectors.

“You won’t be working the collectors to begin with. You’ll start on the secondaries once I’m sure you can handle the work. Now. . we’ll go a little farther, until the walkway starts to get slimy. It doesn’t take long down here.”

A dozen cubits or so farther from the stairs, Myral halted. “I’m going to demonstrate how to use chaos to clean away the filth. Watch me, with your eyes and your senses.”

As the mage turned back toward the darkness, Cerryl could sense the buildup of chaos, a white unseen fire that seemed to flicker around the older mage, yet behind the white of chaos was a dark mist, a dilute blackness, the same as Myral had used with the lock, except there was more of it.

Whhhssttt! A line of flame splashed across the bricks of the walkway. Where there had been green-and-black slime there now were only powdery white dust and clean bricks.

“What did you sense?”

“A black mist and chaos force beyond it, going away.”

“The black was an order shield. Unless held back, chaos force will expand equally in all directions. That’s why people seldom unlock the sewer grates. Someone usually dies if they do.”

“You pack chaos into the lock?”

“People would be using the sewers for everything if we didn’t. Now watch again.”

Once more, Myral repeated the process, and Cerryl tried to capture the feel of it, the constriction and the release as the chaos-fire arced away from the older mage, leaving another circle of clean brick, perhaps a cubit in diameter.

“You see?”

“I think so.”

Myral turned to Cerryl. A tip of flame flickered on his index finger. “We’ll start with the shield. Try to replicate the black mist. Squeeze the flame up into a thin line.”

Cerryl concentrated. Nothing. Why was he trying to control Myral’s chaos force?

“No. Order is not an absence of chaos. Try this. If chaos is fire, flaming where it will, order is ice. You have seen snowflakes, have you not?”

“Yes, ser.” Hot in the tunnel despite the cold wind above, Cerryl wiped his forehead.