L. Modesitt - The White Order

The implication was that light from the sun was less powerful than it could be. . and somehow that was tied into separating-or strengthening light by separating it into different beams of color.

Maybe tomorrow . .

He barely managed to pull off his boots and hang up his whites before collapsing onto his bed.

He didn’t remember waking up or even eating before he went to the secondary collector to begin his cleaning duties once again, but was that because he had been so tired?

Still. . he found himself back underground, standing in a long and slimy sewer. . a secondary collector, and the oozing scum from the drainage way seemed to grab at his boots, with armlike branches that clutched.

Cerryl tried to wield chaos-fire, but his firebolts were but small globes of flame that sputtered across the greened bricks without searing them clean. Each step found him trying to yank his boots free. Even when he did not move, he had to lift his boots and kick them free of the clutching ooze and slime.

He glanced over his shoulder, but the white lancers had vanished, and so had their lamp. And the grate at the top of the steps was again closed, locked with a bronze lock that bore double order and chaos twisted around it.

Cerryl felt heat at his back, and he turned to the space he had been cleaning. A fireball of chaos abruptly swelled up before him on the brick walkway. Lines of light, light that burned like chaos-fire, but more brightly, flared from the chaos ball, and his tunic burst into flame, and he could feel his face blister and the lances of light rip through him like spears of fire.

Cerryl bolted up in his bed abruptly. Sweat poured from his forehead. It had only been a dream, a realistic dream, but only a dream.

Still. . he could feel chaos-and something else-nearby. His eyes and senses scanned his cell, but no one was within the room. He massaged his forehead. It had to be the dream.

After a moment, he padded barefoot across the cold stone to the door, lifted the latch, and eased the door to the corridor barely ajar. His eyes said that no one was about in the darkness well before dawn, yet his senses indicated that someone was, just past his door. Then Faltar’s door eased open and closed.

Cerryl swallowed. He had seen no one, not even Faltar. Yet someone had passed. He sniffed the air. A scent. . a faint fragrance. . somehow familiar. . sandalwood and something.

The only mage who wore any fragrance was Anya-at least the only one he knew. But. . Anya-going to Faltar’s cell? Why? Faltar was only a student mage, and probably a good year from becoming a full mage, perhaps longer, since Faltar had been in the halls longer than Cerryl but still hadn’t even done anything in the sewers.

Anya. . why? Why was she bedding-or seeing-Faltar in secret? And what else had he missed? Cerryl rubbed his chin, feeling a few signs of the beard he had wondered if he would ever grow. What had Anya done to avoid being seen?

Light? Had she used order to wrap light around her?

Abruptly, he realized his feet were chilled and getting colder, and that he stood with his door ajar. He eased the door shut and the latch back in place as silently as he could, and climbed back into his bed, his thoughts spinning.

Every time he turned, there was light-some aspect of light-and he still didn’t understand. . not well enough. Colors of White offered oblique hints. . and little more. Myral offered hints. . and little more.

With a sigh, Cerryl pulled the thin blanket around him.

CERRYL GLANCED THROUGH the gloom of the secondary sewer tunnel at the line on the bricks where the slime began, then concentrated on raising his order shield and then channeling chaos. His nose twitched at the noisome odors rising from the scum on the section of drainage way to his right.

As in his dream, a globule of chaos-fire barely arced out before him, burning clear a patch of bricks no more than two cubits across, leaving the slightest of white residues. If you can’t do better than that, it will be a long day, and seasons in the sewers .

He straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. The second time, he forced his shields down at an angle.

Whhssstt! The chaos-fire sprayed across the bricks, almost like liquid, scouring a patch nearly twice the size of the first.

Behind him, Ullan nervously clunked his spear butt on the bricks of the walkway, and the muted thunks echoed around Cerryl. The student mage paused, not wanting to say anything. . but the sound was distracting.

“Stop it,” whispered Dientyr to Ullan.

Cerryl waited until the echoes died away, and then turned the chaos-fire on the tunnel wall across the drainage way.

Whhhssttt! This time the fire arced too low, barely scouring the bricks a cubit above the water level.

Cerryl frowned. He’d done so much better before he’d started thinking about how to handle and direct the chaos-fire. Why was that? He knew he didn’t want to spew fire wildly-or even half-wildly. He’d seen how little good that had done for the fugitive back at Dylert’s mill.

“Less order. . more chaos. .” he murmured, and tried a third time. The results were better but not much-a patch on the walkway perhaps three cubits long and one wide.

Doggedly, he kept at it, slowly scouring the bricks on the walkway and the wall. When he had a section nearly ten cubits long cleaned, he turned the fire on the scum in the drainage way. A quick-running fire burned across the surface, leaving the turbid and slow-flowing water free of the scum and an odor that mixed ashes, dung, and worse.

Slowly, he cleared the bricks, noting almost absently that he had to take longer and longer breaks between each effort. . and that Ullan had started tapping the lance on the bricks again. He glanced back at Ullan for a moment.

“Sorry, ser.” Ullan bobbed his head, and the thin mustache twitched.

Without speaking, Cerryl turned back to the work at hand.

Once, as a firebolt seared a chunk of branch, Dientyr whispered to Ullan again. “Stop banging that lance. He’s no Jeslek, but he’s got enough flame to fry us.”

No Jeslek? Not yet. Cerryl tightened his lips for a moment, then just let the fire fly.

WHHHSSSTTTT! The fire cascaded into the tunnel wall across the drainage way and splattered in all directions, scouring clear an irregular patch nearly ten cubits long and half again as high.

“Ulppp!” The gulp from Ullan was followed by stillness.

Cerryl smiled to himself, but the expression faded quickly. Somehow. . somehow, he had to manage to combine control with the relaxed flow of chaos. . somehow. And that was hard when he still didn’t really understand what he was doing.

Recalling what Myral had said, Cerryl tried to concentrate on separating chaos into a stream of red light and one of green. . but that wasn’t what he got. Instead, three separate beams flared-yellow, blue, and red-flashing across the slime on the walkway, leaving a hint of steam but not scouring the glazed bricks clean.

“. . was that?” murmured Ullan.

“Shut up. . don’t know, and don’t want to find out,” muttered Dientyr. “Get us both turned into ash.”

“Ooooffff.”

Even without turning, Cerryl had the feeling that Ullan had gotten an elbow, or something, in the gut. He glanced at the faint miasma of steam that dissipated as he watched. Three colors?

He took another deep breath and faced the wall across the drainage way.

ESAAK’S FAT HAND flew across the slate, leaving behind a line of numbers. “You see? If you take the area of the cross-section. . Bah!” Esaak stared at Cerryl. “Do you not see?”