L. Modesitt - The White Order

So had someone been trying to get rid of two people? More feelings you can’t prove?

Like mathematicks, and chaos-fire. . he just didn’t know enough.

The warmth of the sun was countered by the chill of the spray from the fountain, and he continued through the rear hall into the next courtyard and toward the barracks.

“We be ready, ser.” Jyantyl straightened as Cerryl neared.

“Good.” Cerryl turned toward the avenue, Jyantyl walking beside him, the other four lancers two abreast behind them.

The secondary sewage collector tunnel Cerryl had been assigned was more than two kays from the mages’ square, two kays very slightly uphill along the main avenue.

Cerryl’s thoughts seemed a jumbled mess as he marched along the avenue. Why did chaos-fire arc and fall? Light followed a straight path. But chaos-fire burned, and light didn’t. Cerryl’s lips tightened, and then he licked them. The colored light beams had burned-just not so much as chaotic white light. And sunlight didn’t burn, unless it was concentrated with a glass or one stayed in it all day at midsummer. So it wasn’t the color of the light, but the chaos of the light.

How could one separate color from chaos? Cerryl frowned as he kept walking quickly northward on the avenue.

“He’s in a hurry this morning,” muttered Ullan.

“Most mages are,” answered Dientyr.

“Quiet,” snapped Jyantyl.

The five continued along the avenue, passing the market square, the jeweler’s row, and the artisans’ square, until they were within easy sight of the northern gates, before turning left.

Once beside the warehouse wall, Cerryl unlocked, lifted, and relocked the bronze grate in place, then started down the brick steps to the walkway. Even after the eight-days he’d spent chaos-scouring the secondary, the slime had not reappeared where he’d begun.

Behind him, Dientyr lit the sewer lamp, and he and Ullan followed Cerryl into the depths.

Cerryl stood for a time at the edge of the bricks he had already chaos-scoured, staring into the slime-filled darkness that stretched toward the main sewer tunnel west of the avenue, his thoughts still swirling. Find his own way? How? Could he somehow let chaos flow without restricting it, but use order to separate and guide it?

Somehow. . that was the way. How. . that was another question.

Finally, he took a deep breath and just let the chaos flow, barely shielded, observing as much as controlling.

Whhhsttt! Red-tinged white flared everywhere, then faded, followed by minute white ashes swirling up in the dim light of the lamp held by Dientyr, standing perhaps four paces behind Cerryl.

After gathering himself together and taking a full breath, Cerryl stepped forward another several paces to the edge of what he had just scoured. After a moment, Dientyr followed with the lamp, and the muted thump of Ullan’s lance told Cerryl that the lancer had restationed himself.

Standing in the noisome depths, Cerryl tried to form the idea of a glass hanging before him in the air, the kind that would split the light the way a wedge of clear glass did, into colored streams. Slowly, he let the chaos summoned from somewhere-exactly from where he still wasn’t certain-he let it flow through the chaos lens.

The three streams of light played across the slime of the walkway. Steam rose, and the slime blackened but did not burn.

Cerryl took a deep breath. Splitting the fight shouldn’t necessarily weaken it-should it?

He tried again. Again he got colored light lances that steamed and blackened the slime but did not clean.

He had the feeling that he was missing something, but he didn’t know what, and that meant another long day beneath the streets of Fairhaven-perhaps many more, too many more, long eight-days.

OUTSIDE THE MAGES’ tower, the cold early spring rain beat on the stones and shutters, and occasional chill gusts sifted past the closed shutters. Inside, the heaped coals imparted a welcome warmth to Myral’s room.

Cerryl sat on the hard chair.

“You look troubled.” Myral lifted his steaming cider. “Have some.”

“Thank you.” The younger man poured a half a mug from the pitcher, half-scanning it for chaos, then took a sip of the warming liquid, hoping it might lessen his headache.

“What is the difficulty?”

“Sometimes, I seem to be able to clean large sections of the bricks easily, as if. . as if I had been doing it for years. But at other times, or at almost any time I try to focus the chaos-fire on anything, it sort of just. . dribbles out. Or it’s like a ray of light that warms the bricks but doesn’t scour. Sometimes, I can get it to blacken the slime-”

“The fire like a light ray?” asked Myral.

Cerryl nodded.

“That’s what you should work on. . if you can.”

“If I can? Can’t all mages-”

“No.” The older mage shook his head. “The ancients of Cyador all could, if one can believe the old writings, but few can today. Very few. It would be good if you could.”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of order use it takes. . I think.” Cerryl wondered at Myral’s diffidence, at a subtle wrongness, and yet Myral was clearly concerned for Cerryl. Again. . what was being withheld?

“Cerryl,” said Myral mildly, “you can use chaos without being of chaos.”

That was a clear, direct, and truthful statement, and the younger mage swallowed as Myral continued.

“The world is filled with order and chaos. Some floats free; some is mixed with the elements of the world. There is chaos in the molten rock of the fire mountains, and chaos feeds the waters of hot springs. Order is bound into iron. Chaos is not bound into you-or me, or Jeslek. We direct the chaos-that is, gathering it from the world around us. I have told you this before. It is written in Colors of White . But you need to understand this. When you marshal chaos fire in the sewers, it does not come from within you but from the world. You do not have to make it part of you. Some do.” Myral smlied sadly. “They die young.”

“But. . why?”

“It is easier at first to let the chaos flow through you and be part of you.” Myral offered an ironic smile. “Most of the time, in whatever trade one engages in, true skill takes greater effort and time to develop. You are struggling between trying to channel chaos outside yourself and letting it flow through you. You get better results now, if it goes through you. Is this not true?”

“Yes,” Cerryl admitted.

“The choice is yours.” Myral stood. “I have no special tricks to offer you, no easy steps to control, just observations.” He gestured toward the door. “And you need to keep working at it in the sewers, for so long as it takes until you can handle chaos consistently and with control.”

Cerryl hurriedly swallowed the last of the cider, wincing as the hot liquid seared his throat, then eased back the straight-backed chair and stood.

“I am not hiding a secret from you,” Myral added. “I can tell you what is, but you have to find out how to make it work for you.”

“Yes, ser.”

“Cerryl.” Myral’s voice hardened. “You can honestly try to understand, or you can pretend you do and fail or die young. You choose.” He nodded to the door once more.

As Cerryl left and started down the stone steps, the sound of the white oak door’s closing still echoing in his ears, his throat still burning, he felt like screaming. If he didn’t have the ability to muster strong chaos force, he would be at the mercy of the Kesriks of Candar. If he didn’t get control of the chaos force outside himself, he’d die young. If he didn’t keep some ability to handle chaos, he’d fail and die.