The White Order

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  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.

  “If you look at a snowflake, each one is an ordered pattern, a repeating lattice.”

  Cerryl didn’t know what to say.

  Myral blotted his forehead, streaming sweat, with the back of his sleeve. Then he sighed. “Pure chaos has no pattern, only power. Pure order is like death or ice, with a perfect structure and no life. Think about a pattern, any pattern. Build it in your mind-a net, a web, a lattice…”

  Cerryl nodded.

  “… and pattern it around the chaos.” Myral continued to sweat as the chaos-flame danced on his fingertip.

  The second time, the student mage created the image of a black net shrinking around the chaos-fire. He blinked as the point of chaos-fire winked out.

  “Again.” This time Myral manifested a brighter line of fire, bright enough that Cerryl could see the rivulets of sweat streaming down the older mage’s face.

  Cerryl put his mind back to the dark net-and the light vanished.

  “Good. You try it. The smallest amount of chaos-fire you can raise. The very smallest.”

  Cerryl obeyed, trying to form a candle tip of white fire just above his upraised index finger.

  The faintest point of light appeared.

  “Good. Now… try to use order to move it away from you.”

  Cerryl managed the black lattice mist-and the chaos-fire flicked out. So did the lamp Myral held.

  “Order may be harder to hold than chaos,” said Myral dryly, “but it is stronger than most white mages realize.” The lamp flickered back to life, sparked by a touch of chaos-fire. “Unless they’ve already run into one of the blacks from Recluce.”

  Cerryl wiped his forehead, realizing that even the small efforts asked by Myral were tiring. “If order is so strong, why did Creslin leave Candar? I’ve always wondered…”

  “And were afraid to ask?” Myral laughed gently. “If the accounts are halfway correct, he was the greatest weather mage ever known and possibly the greatest blade of his time. Yet he ran. Is that what you’re asking?”

  Cerryl nodded just the slightest bit.

  “Because the man had brains, young Cerryl. He’d offended the Guild, with reason… How many mages are there in the Guild?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Good. How many do you know?”

  “I’ve seen close to a score, maybe even twice that. I’m not sure.”

  “And how many mages supported Creslin?”

  “One-Megaera.”

  “Actually, there were two other blacks at first, but it doesn’t matter. Would you have stayed in Candar with fivescore times your number of mages seeking you, and all the armsmen east of the Westhorns seeking your head for a price?”

  “Oh…”

  “He was smart. An isle is about the only place that could have stopped that many white mages-all that water, and, worse for poor Jenred, he picked an isle with an iron core.” Myral shook his head. “This history isn’t improving your handling of chaos-force. A stronger touch of chaos-just a little stronger, mind you.”

  Cerryl let more chaos-force glimmer from his fingers, until it exuded enough light to match the lamp. Then… slowly, he wove his black net around it, turning it into a long glowing taper.

  “Now… push the force away from you, toward the bricks on the side of the tunnel or the walkway.”

  Cerryl tried… and the wormlike chaos-fire flopped onto the bricks almost at his feet.

  Whsst.

  “It’s harder to propel it away from you. That’s why you need to work on the shield first. You can get burned by your own fire.”

  Cerryl glanced at the small patch of ash and clean brick beneath.

  “Chaos-fire is hard on boots-and toes.” Myral’s voice took on the dry tone again.

  The student mage swallowed.

  “Again. You need to keep practicing until you hardly have to think about what you’re doing.”

  Cerryl wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then took a deep breath. He had the feeling the day was going to be long-very long.

  LXIII

  Cerryl took the large brass key that Myral had entrusted to him, and Placed it in the lock, letting the black order rise and gently restrain the chaos-fire that would have burst forth if without the restraint-or order shield.

  Order-just to use chaos. The strangeness of it still struck him, almost with a shiver, a shiver compounded by the distinctly foul odor rising from the tunnel below the grate.

  “Bad one down there…” murmured one of the guards.

  “They’re all bad when they need to be cleaned,” answered Jyantyl, the head guard of the detachment.

  Once Cerryl had lifted the grate and relocked both the bronze lock and its chaos force, he turned to the senior guard.

  “Jyantyl, I don’t know how long this will take.” Is that a true statement!

  “Me and Shelkar will stand by here.” A smile followed. “Usually a season or so. Most give the guards a midday break, and they need it as well.”

  Cerryl nodded, thankful for the combined reminder and hint.

  The other two guards, Ullan and Dientyr, followed Cerryl down the narrow steps to the secondary sewer tunnel. Cerryl almost slipped on the bottom step.

  “Hold it.”

  “Yes, ser.” As Ullan stopped, his lance scraped the fired and glazed brick of the wall.

  Cerryl looked down at the green slime on the bottom two steps, then at the runnel. The gray-and-black mass in the drainage way bobbed up and down gently, within a half-span of the walkway. The tunnel walls were coated with slime up to a good three cubits above the water level.

  Something was partly blocking the sewer-somewhere.

  First things first. He turned. “Ullan… back up a little. I need to clean these steps.”

  The dark-haired lancer guard nodded, the ends of his twig-thin mustache fluttering as he did. He and the sandy-haired Dientyr stepped back up to street level.

  Cerryl backed up three steps and looked down. He took a deep breath and concentrated, first on raising the black shield mist and then on pushing forth the chaos-fire.

  Whhhssst… A glob of fire half-floated, half-fell onto the third step from the bottom and oozed across the two steps below it. Points of fire sparked as the chaos lit scraps of wood or something. Cerryl could feel the residual heat wash over his legs, despite his boots and heavy white trousers.

  Darkness, what a sloppy firebolt…

  In a moment, the steps held only powdered white ashes that sifted off the glazed bricks.

  Cerryl took another breath and mustered another shield and more chaos-fire. />
  This time his firebolt was larger and cleared the walkway for perhaps three cubits. Cerryl stepped down onto the walkway, trying not to gag at the stench that enfolded him.

  He glanced at the side of the tunnel by the steps, then repressed a sigh. Everything needed fire-scouring. Everything.

  As he turned to the wall beside the steps, a gurgling and bubbling came from the drainage way, and he glanced back in time to see a gas bubble pop out of the dark green fuzz on top of the wastewater.

  For a moment, he felt he couldn’t breathe, and he quickly jumped up two steps and took a gasp of air, glad he hadn’t loosed any chaos-fire when the gas bubble had burst.

  He shook his head and raised order and chaos-fire again, clearing the tunnel wall. He stepped down to the tunnel and glanced toward the drainage way.

  Then he climbed back up the stairs.

  “… up and down… up and down…”

  “Shut up, Ullan… be glad it’s him and not you. Some’d have you down there in front of him, and you’d not last so long as clean air down there.”

  Cerryl ignored the byplay and, from halfway up the steps, dropped a firebolt onto the green-and-gray scum-fuzz on top of the wastewater.

  Crumpt… umpt… ump…

  A line of fire and a series of little explosions ran in both directions from the chaos-fire impact. After a moment, white ash sprayed across the secondary sewage tunnel below, some rising on hot sewer air and gas into the cooler fresh air of the street above.

  “…ugh…”

  “Ullan,” warned Jyantyl.

  Cerryl already felt tired, and he’d barely cleared the area around the tunnel entrance. A gust of cold air swirled around him and mixed with the fetid sewer atmosphere.

  He stepped down to the walkway. Bits of white ash covered the thick-looking wastewater, but the green-and-gray scum-fuzz had disappeared. Burned off? Cerryl didn’t know. More reading, he sup-Posed.

  Another firebolt brought more clear walkway bricks. He glanced at the drainage way. Was the wastewater level slightly lower? Had the scum he’d burned off slowed the flow down?

  Slowly he walked another half-dozen paces into the darkness, though he could sense things well enough. Something protruded from the drainage way, not a great deal, perhaps a half cubit above the water level, and he thought the water level was lower on the other side. A rubbish buildup?

  With a half-shrug, he lofted another firebolt onto whatever it was that rose out of the drainage way.

  A burst of flame flared into the tunnel, then subsided, and the protuberance vanished with a gurgling sound. Then another gurgling sound rose, and the water level in the drainage way began to drop.

  “Why here?” Then he looked back toward the stairs and the grate above. Of course some good citizen of Fairhaven had probably disposed of something through the bars-something he hadn’t wanted to bring to the refuse wagon.

  Cerryl wanted to shake his head. Whatever it had been, he’d just destroyed it.

  His eyes went to the drainage way, now down to what he thought was a more normal level, and back along the next dozen cubits of walkway that he had yet to clean.

  He mustered another firebolt, scouring half the distance to what he’d cleaned previously, but his head was beginning to ache, like it did in a storm, and skies were clear.

  How could he direct enough fire to clean anything? He leaned against the just-cleaned tunnel wall for a moment.

  Light… light… Myral kept talking about light. So had Jeslek. That had to be something about it, something he needed to think about… if he ever had time and energy.

  “Ullan, you and Dientyr can come down now.” His voice sounded ragged, but he turned toward the darkness and slime ahead.

  LXIV

  Cerryl rapped on the door to Myral’s tower quarters. Almost immediately, he felt the sense of being watched in a glass.

  “Come on in, Cerryl.”

  As the sense of being scanned vanished, the student mage opened the door and entered, closing it behind him firmly. “I’m here, as you requested, ser.”

  “Yes, you are here. That’s good.” Myral stood from the chair by the round table. “It means that you got the lock open and closed. I would have heard if you hadn’t gotten that far. Jyantyl also would have reported if you hadn’t been able to clean anything.” The round-faced mage pointed to the chair. “Have a seat. You’ll be on your feet all day-Would you like some hot cider?”

  “Yes, please.” Cerryl waited until Myral poured another mug of the steaming liquid and had reseated himself. He could see the faintest of white chaos residue around Myral, far less than he sensed around Jeslek or Sterol. Do other mages sense that around you?

  “You were up in the old tanners’ section, along the old warehouses.”

  Cerryl nodded, taking a quick sip of the spiced cider, so much better than the water or ale that were the morning choices in the meal hall.

  “It’s been a while since it’s been scoured. How was it?”

  “The drainage way was clogged, not more than a dozen cubits from the steps.” Cerryl managed another sip, despite the heat of the beverage.

  “That happens a lot. People push things through the grates. The rubbish flows some distance, sometimes quite a distance, before it catches on something and creates a block.” Myral cocked his head slightly. “Did you find out what it was?”

  “No, ser. I didn’t figure that out until I saw something sticking out of the scum and fired it. Then it was too late.”

  “It burned, I take it.”

  “The scum burned off and so did whatever jammed the drainage way.”

  “It could have been worse. You can get quite a jolt if you hit polished iron or steel and you’re not expecting it. Quite a jolt.” Myral fingered his bearded chin thoughtfully. “Have you reached that cluster of third-level inlets on the south side?”

  “No, ser.”

  “How far did you get?”

  “Not very far, ser. Yesterday, I’d guess maybe forty cubits. The slime was almost shoulder high on the walls.”

  “That secondary hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned in three or four years, I believe. The cluster should be another fifty cubits or so beyond where you are now. When you get there, spend some time cleaning the inlets as far back as you can press with your chaos-fire.”

  “How far should I be able to reach?”

  Myral shrugged. “You have just begun to handle chaos-fire. I don’t have any idea. You ought to be able to press it fifteen or twenty cubits back, and the steam should clean it even farther. You can use the steam to your advantage, you know? Block the conduit with your shield, and the steam can only go the other way.”

  “Ah… yes, ser. I hadn’t thought of that.” How much else hadn’t he thought about?

  “You’ll learn. You have to do things to learn.” Myral smiled politely and stood. “Oh, there’s one other thing I forgot to tell you. Never use all the chaos force you have.”

  Cerryl nodded.

  “No. I mean it. You can feel the force build up within you, right? Before you release it?”

  “Yes, ser, in a way.”

  “If you spray out everything each time, you get tired quickly. Also, unless you’re like Jeslek-with so much power to spare that it doesn’t matter-you’ll find that your ability to handle chaos diminishes over time.”

  “Won’t holding chaos back… ?” Cerryl wasn’t certain exactly what he wanted to say.

  “Mayhap… I didn’t say that as well as I could have. Use the force you have, but don’t strain. Don’t try to push that last bit out that you may not have.”

  That made more sense.

  “Well, best you get to work. Stop by tomorrow-every morning, in fact-and give me a report.”

  “Yes, ser.” Cerryl stood.

  “Think about what you do. Do not just act.” Myral inclined his head toward the door.

  Cerryl nodded and left, closing the door behind him and starting down the stairs, then pausing as he heard bo
ots coming up from below.

  He stepped back up to the landing as a blonde-haired figure in green appeared. “Good morning.” He eased to one side of the landing to give the green-eyed young woman access to Myral’s door.

  “Good day.” Leyladin smiled pleasantly but made no move to enter Myral’s quarters or to continue up the steps.

  Cerryl felt tongue-tied, wanting to say something but not knowing what he could say-or dared to say. Finally, he forced a smile and said, “Good day.” He headed down the steps, conscious of her eyes on his back, wishing he had said something more profound-or less banal.

  He’d dreamed of her for years, and all he could say was “Good day.” He looked back up the steps, but she had gone into Myral’s quarters. He took a deep breath. He had sewers to clean.

  LXV

  Cerryl trudged down the corridor toward his cell, feeling that his shirt, tunic, and trousers smelled of sewer, even though he’d washed thoroughly and brushed the surface of his garments with the hint of chaos-fire before redonning them-a trick he’d picked up from watching Myral. Then maybe the smell of sewage was too deeply imbedded in his nostrils for one stop in the washroom to rid him of it.

  He’d been working nearly an eight-day on the one secondary sewer, and he’d cleaned the space between two access grates-all of perhaps three hundred cubits, more or less. The section he’d worked on had only a handful of small collectors entering it, and that was fine because he wasn’t very good at pushing chaos force away from himself and through the buried small glazed brick conduits. The slime and grime were coated on the brick walls more than half a handspan thick in some places, and Cerryl had to wonder when the collector had last been scoured.

  He didn’t stop by his cell, knowing he was close to being late for the evening meal. As he stopped outside the meal hall, he felt again- as he had more and more frequently-that someone was watching him in a glass. But who?

  He squared his shoulders and stepped into the room, glancing around and seeing Faltar and Lyasa at one of the round center tables. Lyasa was the one who motioned for him to join them.