L. Modesitt - The White Order

“The sewers,” suggested Cerryl. “The sewers.”

“Cerryl is right,” added Bealtur. “Especially now, when it is so hot and the odor in the tunnels leads you to retch. I was there last summer.” He shook his head.

“You two are so cheerful about studies.” Faltar sighed and looked down at the books. At the sound of steps, his eyes turned. Leyladin, Lyasa, and Anya walked by the archway to the commons together. A smile crossed his face.

“I can tell where your thoughts are,” said Cerryl.

“And yours aren’t? You’re smiling, too.”

“There’s not much I can do about it. I’m only a student. Besides, I suspect that those who are in higher places have a greater claim.” Cerryl tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“With Leyladin? Neither Sterol nor Jeslek could touch her. Maybe not Fydel or Myral, either.” Faltar grinned. “It’s good to see that you are like the rest of us-just that you don’t show it.”

Cerryl frowned. “But she’s pretty. Why couldn’t they?”

“She’s a black or gray-healers have to be. Touching, and you can’t take a woman without touching her, would be pretty painful-for both of them.” Faltar winced. “They’re filled with chaos.”

“They say old Chystyr was into that, but he looked like he had lasted three generations, and he didn’t have forty years when he died two years ago,” Bealtur added from the adjoining study table.

Cerryl felt his heart sink. Did it have to be that way? He groped for words. Even though he already knew the answers, he had to say something. “Then. . why does Myral instruct her? Or Sterol allow her around?”

“Someone has to instruct her, and Myral is the one who probably has the most experience. Sterol. . how could he do otherwise?” Faltar glanced toward the corridor. “I’m hungry. Do you want to see if there’s any bread left out?”

“They had two dark loaves a while ago,” suggested Bealtur. “I had some.”

As his stomach growled, the young mage nodded to himself. “That sounds good.” He still had to practice with the glass, but that could wait, would have to wait until after he scrounged something to eat from the meal hall. He turned down the corridor, thinking again about the glass and how much he had to learn.

AS THE CHESTNUT carried him back toward Fairhaven, and the Halls of the Mages, Cerryl rubbed his forehead, which ached, because he couldn’t massage his posterior, which also ached from all his bouncing in the saddle. Sitting in the hard leather saddle, he still felt very high, and very exposed, even after almost ten kays of riding to and from the water tunnel. He kept having to relax his fingers because he found them gripping the leather of the reins far too tightly.

Eliasar had stuck him on a horse several times, but that hadn’t prepared him for the five-kay ride out to the point north of Fairhaven where the aqueduct went underground and became the main water tunnel for the city. He glanced ahead at Jeslek, and Leyladin, who rode silently beside the white mage with an ease Cerryl envied. Even Kochar, riding beside Cerryl, seemed relatively at ease on horseback. Cerryl shifted his weight. The saddle felt hard, and it had felt hard from the first few cubits the chestnut had carried him right after breakfast.

He glanced to the west, where the sun hung over the hills, then to the white granite road that sloped gently toward the north gates of Fairhaven.

Cerryl still had to wonder why Leyladin had been required. He could sense as well as she had the residual chaos of sludge and mold in the cracks in the stone of the tunnel that could have poisoned the water had it been allowed to grow.

Before they had left the Halls, Jeslek had said, “There’s a difference between what you might call honest chaos and the kind of chaos that poisons the water. That’s something that usually only healers can feel.”

For all of what Jeslek had said, cleaning the water tunnel had been little different from cleaning the sewers-except for checking more carefully to ensure there was no sign of slime or mold. Yet Jeslek had insisted that cleaning the aqueduct required a black or gray mage who was a healer. Cerryl wondered why-he had sensed the flux type of chaos that Leyladin had pinpointed. He frowned. Could it be that neither Jeslek nor Kochar had? He couldn’t very well ask.

Cerryl massaged his left shoulder with his right hand, hanging on to the front rim of the saddle-and the reins-with his left.

By the time they passed through the north gates, Cerryl’s thighs were cramping. The even half-score of white lancers followed the group down the avenue, and despite the late afternoon sun, Cerryl could feel even more sweat oozing down his back. The day had been hot, though much of it had been spent in the comparative cool of the water tunnel, and forecast a warm harvest season indeed.

He glanced ahead again at Leyladin, still riding easily beside Jeslek, then at Kochar. The redheaded student looked over with a smile and said in a low voice, “Remember, relax. Don’t fight it.”

How did one not struggle to stay in the saddle? Cerryl wondered. It was easy enough for Kochar to say, but another thing to manage. Cerryl took a deep breath and tried to study the grain exchange building as they rode past. Only a single carriage stood by the mounting blocks, cloaked in the building’s shadow.

Nor did the artisans’ square look any different from any other afternoon, with a handful of buyers, and a single apprentice running up the side street in the direction of Tellis’s shop.

Before long, Cerryl reined up and glanced wearily around the front of the stables. Jeslek, Kochar, and Leyladin had already dismounted. A pair of stable boys led Kochar’s and Leyladin’s mounts into the stable, and they walked back around the north side of the stable toward the eastern courtyard.

A white-bearded man in blue stepped out from the late afternoon shade of the overhang. “You getting off that mount, ser?”

“Oh. . yes.” Cerryl swung awkwardly out of the saddle, and his legs almost buckled as his feet came down on the hard stone of the courtyard. He looked back at the big chestnut dubiously, wondering if he would ever get used to riding, then followed the others back to the east side of the stable.

“So you decided to rejoin us, Cerryl?” Jeslek did not smile as he spoke.

“I’m sorry, ser. I’m not as good a rider as you are.” That was certainly true.

“Well, you’re all here, and you did a good day’s work-all of you.” Jeslek’s youthful face, as always, belied the white hair and the sun-gold eyes. “Right after breakfast again tomorrow.”

Kochar took a deep breath. Leyladin and Cerryl exchanged glances as Jeslek turned and left.

Then, with a nod, Kochar also turned and left.

“You haven’t ridden much, have you?” Leyladin smiled sympathetically. At least Cerryl hoped the smile was sympathetic.

“No. Eliasar stuck me up on a gentle beast a couple of times and let me ride around the streets. That was about it.” Cerryl glanced toward the entrance to the courtyard, the one leading back to the main section of the Halls of the Mages, then at Leyladin. “Ah. . I had a question.”

She smiled. “No. . I’m not Myral’s lover. Nor Jeslek’s. Myral’s a sweet, but not to my taste. Jeslek’s not to my taste, either, but that wouldn’t stop him. I’m a gray, almost a black, and that does stop him because that wouldn’t work.”

“Ah. .” Cerryl found himself flushing furiously. “That wasn’t. . my question.”

“That may not have been the question you were going to ask.” She grinned. “But it was on your mind.” She waited. “Wasn’t it?”

Cerryl found himself blushing again.