Colors of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Both Meridis and Soaris stood in the entry hall beyond the foyer.

  “Meridis…he brought roses.” Leyladin smiled. “Could you…while I wash up?” She extended the roses to the older woman.

  “I’ll put them in the good crystal vase, where you always like them,” said Meridis. “Now, don’t be dallying. The supper’s ready.”

  “I won’t.” The healer reached out and squeezed Cerryl’s hand. “Cerryl, Father, I’ll meet you in the dining hall. I won’t be long.”

  “I believe I have heard words like that before.” Layel’s words were gentle, teasing.

  “You have, but I won’t be.” With the last word, she slipped down the hall and out of sight.

  Cerryl followed Layel through the sitting room.

  “You felt her, didn’t you?” asked the trader. “She said you two could do that. So close, and yet you dare not have children.”

  Cerryl winced. “It might kill her.”

  “She told me such, and she will have none but you.”

  “I’ll have none but her.”

  They had barely reached the table when Leyladin appeared, still wearing her green trousers and silk shirt, with the black vest that seemed even darker than black itself in the fading light of day and the glow cast by the oil lamps in their wall sconces.

  “I said I would not be long.”

  “And so you did.” Layel seated himself at the head, and Cerryl and Leyladin sat on each side, across from each other.

  As Layel poured the cool white wine into the three goblets, Cerryl looked across the table into Leyladin’s dark green eyes. “How was your trip back?”

  “The highway was almost empty.”

  “More and more like that these days.” Layel nodded morosely.

  “Trade is bad?”

  “So little I’d not be calling it trade. Enough of that.” He raised his goblet. “To both of you being home.”

  “To being home,” echoed Leyladin.

  Cerryl raised his goblet with a smile, without words, and they drank.

  Meridis set three platters on the table. “The cold spiced fowl and the chilled pearapples and the riced beans. Nothing to be making you hot on a warm evening.”

  “What will you be doing now, Cerryl?” Layel eased the fowl platter toward his daughter.

  “The High Wizard gave me some duties to carry out for Overmage Kinowin, probably until he can find somewhere distant to send me.” Cerryl went on to explain in very general terms his assignments. “…and that means reporting every day on what the Blacks are doing with that ship.”

  “It truly moves against the wind?” Layel frowned.

  “It does, and sometimes faster than a normal ship.”

  “A ship such as that, well, many be the traders who’d find a use for such.”

  “I cannot see how Recluce would allow a chaos engine, even one bound in black iron,” ventured Leyladin before taking a bite of the fowl.

  “In time, in time, a better ship will turn any trader’s mind,” mumbled Layel, “and your White brethren forget that the Black ones are traders first and order mages second.”

  Traders first and mages second. “And you think the Guild puts magery first and trade second?”

  “Power first, magery second, and trade a poor third,” suggested Layel. “Yet trade builds power. That the Black ones have discovered. All power is built on coins, and coins come from goods, and goods can but be sold through trade.”

  Cerryl ate a mouthful of the sweetened and chilled pearapples, thinking about Layel’s words, about all the golds he had seen in Gallos and even in Spidlaria.

  “Father would have been a great lord elsewhere.” Leyladin laughed. “Wertel will make him one yet, from all he does in Lydiar, over Father’s protestations.”

  “Fairhaven is my home,” grumbled the trader. “Yet only the old overmage understands how what I do benefits her.”

  “Kinowin?”

  “Aye, but he’ll be gone in a handful of years, and then that spawn of Muneat’s dead brother will turn the city over to Muneat and Jiolt.”

  “Anya?”

  “That’s the one. She plays Jiolt like…” Layel shook his head in disgust. “Muneat sees through her, but he’s near on a score of years older than I am, and his boy Devo—well, he couldn’t count golds with his fingers.”

  “Anya tried to play Jeslek.” Cerryl glanced across the table.

  “And he’s dead,” Leyladin pointed out.

  “Sterol uses her. I don’t think he’s taken in.”

  “She’ll find a way to turn the Guild against him,” predicted Leyladin. “That’s why Jeslek was trying to make that smith in Diev your problem.”

  “So is Sterol.” Cerryl nodded slowly. “I have to follow the smith with the glass and report every day.”

  “She’s clever,” mused Leyladin. “If you don’t keep track, then you’ll be in trouble. If you do, and everyone knows it, then Sterol will have to do something.”

  “I worry about that,” Cerryl admitted.

  “We can’t do anything tonight. Not about Anya. How are Aliaria and Nierlia? I need to see them.” The green eyes danced. “They should meet Cerryl.”

  “You’re going to be an aunt again. Nierlia says this one will be a girl and she’ll name her after you.”

  The hint of darkness crossed the healer’s face, followed by a smile. “I’ll spoil her.”

  “Not any more than Nierlia will,” suggested Layel. “Oh…and Aliaria’s oldest—I can never remember her name—Aliaria has her taking guitar lessons from some music master who claims he’s from Delapra…”

  “…she doesn’t have any rhythm…”

  “…Aliaria thinks it will improve her chances for a good consort…”

  “…barely over a half-score years…”

  Before Cerryl knew it, the small talk had drifted into silence. Layel stretched and yawned almost ostentatiously. “I think I’ll be leaving. I need to write a scroll to Wertel before the evening’s over so that it can go on the morning post coach.” He stood. “You might find the front room more comfortable, but you two are young, and you’ll find whatever suits you.”

  Meridis appeared, as though she had been waiting. “Be best if I could clean all this before I have to burn every lamp in the place.”

  Leyladin laughed. “We’re being directed.”

  “No one directs you, Daughter!” called Layel from the door to his study.

  The two mages—White and Black—stood and walked into the sitting room, where they paused. Meridis had arranged the roses in a crystal vase on the low table beneath the portrait of Leyladin’s mother.

  “You don’t mind that they’re there?” the healer asked.

  “No…why?”

  “Mother loved roses. I haven’t been so good as I should.”

  “Wherever you would like them.”

  Leyladin touched his hand, and they crossed the entry hall into the darker front room, where not a single lamp was lit against the growing late-summer dusk. They sat on the long settee that faced the open windows, and the cooler evening breeze wafted around them.

  “How is Estalin’s son?”

  “He’s fine, for now. He’ll need healers all his life, at times. He’s not that strong.”

  “I’m glad you could leave.”

  “I don’t know as I could. I told Sedelos that there was nothing to be gained by my staying and that he could summon me were I needed. I knew you were coming home, and I wanted to see you.”

  “Sterol is High Wizard now.”

  “Anya is the one to watch.”

  “I know.” Cerryl refrained from repeating Anya’s words about children.

  “We can talk about the Guild tomorrow.” Leyladin paused. “Can you stay…here?”

  “For now,” he said.

  “I meant at night.”

  “Yes.” He grinned in the dimness. “I’m glad you want me to.”

  “You really can?”

  “Kinowin almos
t ordered me to. He said my nights were free and he expected me not to waste them in the Halls.”

  “He said more than that.”

  Cerryl nodded. “He said a mage’s days were too short.”

  Leyladin’s arms were around him. “They can’t be. They can’t be. You can’t be like Myral and Kinowin. You have to use more order and less chaos. You can’t leave me. I won’t let you.”

  His eyes misted, and for a time he held her in the growing darkness of the front room.

  “I meant it,” she finally whispered.

  “I know. You’ll have to help.”

  “Any help you need.”

  He tightened his embrace, then brushed her lips with his.

  “Bringing the flowers…that was sweet. Thank you.”

  Silently Cerryl thanked Kinowin.

  “And thank Kinowin for me, too.” Her dark green eyes danced, brighter than any lamp, as she reached for his hand to lead him to a silk-hung bedchamber—one he had but seen in a glass.

  CXLII

  CERRYL STEPPED INTO his quarters at the back of the rear Hall. He sniffed. The scent of trilia and sandalwood was faint but unmistakable. What had Anya been seeking?

  He cast his senses across the small room, the space he used only for work in the days since Leyladin had returned from Lydiar, but could detect no concentration of chaos or even of order. He shook his head. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he truly had no secrets, and the redhead clearly thought he did.

  He closed the door and sat at the desk, studying the screeing glass for a moment before concentrating on finding the smith and his vessel. When the silver mists cleared, the glass showed Dorrin’s ship anchored in a rough bay off a low and marshy point of land. Where?

  Cerryl scratched the back of his head, then tried again.

  It took Cerryl most of the remainder of the morning to discover that the Black ship lay off the southwestern tip of the isle of Recluce, nowhere near even a town. There were several tents and what looked to be several dwellings or structures under construction.

  He tightened his lips. What exactly the ship’s movement meant he didn’t know, but Kinowin needed to know as well. Perhaps the overmage might have some ideas. If the smith and his followers were building a town or another port…

  Cerryl pursed his lips, finding it hard to believe that the smith had done so much so quickly. Then, this Dorrin had helped destroy half the forces sent into Spidlar, killed Jeslek, built an engine that moved a ship against the wind, and escaped the blockade. What was building a town in a few days compared to that?

  Letting the image fade, Cerryl massaged his neck and forehead before heading to see Kinowin. It was almost noon by the time he stepped into Kinowin’s room amid the gathering of purple hangings.

  “You have a disturbed look.” Kinowin touched the purple blotch on his cheek, almost absently.

  “The smith has moved his ship to the southern end of the accursed isle.”

  “Away from Land’s End. Some might say that is well.”

  “It lies at anchor in a small bay. There are tents on the land and the beginnings of buildings.”

  “A town for him and his followers, you think?” Kinowin smiled faintly.

  “I would guess so, but it is too early to tell.”

  “Then it is too early for me to tell the High Wizard aught except that the ship has been moved. One should not disturb His Mightiness with mere speculation.”

  Cerryl raised his eyebrows at the heavy irony in the overmage’s voice. “Speculation.”

  “Ah, yes, speculation.” Kinowin made a sound halfway between a laugh and a snort, and for a moment he looked cadaverous. “I suggested to the High Wizard that this vessel might prove useful for trade, and he suggested that he had little time to worry about what might be when he was gathering a force to break the latest Duke of Hydlen to reign.”

  “The latest?” How many have there been in the last few years?

  “Another cousin. Afabar, I believe. He is from Asula, one of the ancient towns that claims the purest line of descent. He also has the support of the traders of Worrak, Pyrdya, and Renklaar. There are few traders of coins outside of those cities.”

  “He refuses—the new duke—to pay tariffs?”

  “He has not said anything—by messenger, by scroll, or in any other fashion. Fairhaven does not exist for him. You recall Derka?” Kinowin leaned back in the chair.

  “He went back to Hydolar.”

  “The Council made him mage adviser, but he declined and vanished—quickly—and they sent Elsinot.”

  “The new duke killed him somehow?”

  “How did you guess?”

  “Mountain cats don’t lose their claws,” Cerryl said dryly.

  “So Sterol does not wish to deal with mere speculation at the moment.” Kinowin’s mouth quirked. “I will tell him that the ship moved and that you will watch closely. I will also tell him you are out inspecting the gates this afternoon. I suggest you do so, and that after you do, you make your presence known to one of the gate mages.”

  Cerryl nodded. “I should give Sterol no excuses and no offense.”

  “Not until you must.”

  “Also…Anya’s been in my quarters when I’ve been gone.”

  “That surprises me even less than the movement of the smith’s vessel.”

  “I should ignore her but leave nothing that I would not wish Sterol to see?”

  “You understand, Cerryl. Unfortunately, that is the way matters will be for a time. After you eat, be on your way. I will be meeting with the High Wizard in the early afternoon.” Kinowin grinned. “Did she like the flowers?”

  Cerryl flushed. “She did.” Then he grinned. “And she said to thank you also.”

  “Hang to her, Cerryl. She is worth all those in the White Tower, this old overmage included. Consider yourself fortunate, and waste no days…or nights.”

  Cerryl flushed even more brightly.

  “Go.” Kinowin laughed gently. “I’ll not tariff you more.”

  CXLIII

  CERRYL STUDIED THE empty Avenue, his eyes flicking around the square. Despite the infrequent street lamps, the whitened granite of the Avenue held and reflected enough light, even at midnight, that Cerryl’s borrowed mount had no difficulty in making her way from the Artisans’ Square up the narrower Way of the Lesser Artisans. The shops of the first crafters were as he had recalled, including the old potter’s, but the one that had held the weaver’s shop—where he had first seen Pattera—that now held yet another potter, if the emblem over the door were true.

  He guided the mare down the alleyway—past all the sewer catches—toward the rear gate to Tellis’s house. Outside the courtyard, Cerryl sat in the saddle, then fingered the leather pouch—a small handful of golds, but a few golds were all he had. Not all by any means, but you have other debts to pay, and now is not when you should be poor again, either. Self-deception? Probably.

  He smiled in the darkness, not quite sardonically, as he swung down from his mount, which he tied to the gate. He looked in all directions, but all the nearby windows were dark. Then, letting the light-blurring shield rise around him, he opened the gate from the alley and eased across the rear courtyard. Rather than open the common room door, Cerryl tied the pouch to the door latch and cloaked it in a faint illusion, one that would break the moment a hand touched the latch and one that would not hold past midmorning.

  He wondered if Tellis and Beryal or Benthann would guess who had left the pouch. One way or another, it didn’t matter. Another debt paid…as best you can for now.

  He retreated to the gate, which he closed, and then untied the mare and remounted. The faint clop of hoofs echoed down the alley and then along the Way of the Lesser Artisans as he retraced his path back to the small stable behind Layel’s small mansion. The air remained warm and still, the Avenue empty, except for one White mage and his mount.

  Once back at the stable, he dismounted and led the mare to her stall. He brushed h
er quickly in the darkness, then closed her stall and the stable door, making his way through the gloom back to the door on the south side of the house. He unlocked it with Leyladin’s key, then relocked it behind himself. His steps were not quite noiseless on the marble floor, but no one roused—or called out—as he opened Leyladin’s bedchamber door, then closed it behind him.

  “You weren’t that long. How did it go?” asked Leyladin sleepily as he undressed and then slipped under the single sheet, more than enough for the warm night.

  “It was too little and too late, but…”

  “Better than not at all.” She touched his lips with her finger. “Tellis? The weaver girl?”

  “Tellis. The weaver has moved.”

  “I’ll ask Soaris to see if he can find her. No one should know you’re the one who’s looking. Especially Anya.”

  Especially Anya. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad you are who you are.” Two warm arms slipped around him, and their lips met.

  So am I…after all these years.

  CXLIV

  SITTING AT THE other side of the round table, the gaunt Kinowin sipped some early cider from a mug.

  Just like Myral. Does age do that? Cerryl’s eyes lingered on the mug.

  “The apple juice helps.” Kinowin smiled. “I used to wonder that myself. Now, I know. What more about the smith?”

  “He is building a town. I wasn’t sure to begin with,” Cerryl admitted, “but in two eight-days he has the beginning of another port town. The Blacks are letting him do it; some are even sending timber and supplies.”

  “Maybe it’s just a way to get a second good port,” suggested the overmage, fingering the collar starburst with the fingers of his free hand. “The waters are smoother in the winter there.”

  “They’ve even got a timber wharf, and the glass shows walls and footings for a stone quay or something. He’s working on the bay, making it bigger, but with some kind of order force.”

  “You can’t use order that way,” Kinowin pointed out.