The White Order (27 page)

Under the clear skies and with the bright sun on his back, Cerryl still felt cold because of the chill wind that blew out of the northwest, almost into his face. He and Myral walked westward on the side avenue, followed by two of the white guards.

   Next to a blank white granite wall-the side wall of a warehouse of some sort-Myral stopped and knelt by the bronze sewer grate. The older mage fumbled with his purse before extracting a large bronze key. “Cerryl.” Cerryl bent down.

   “Watch what I do with the key. Use your senses.” Cerryl could sense a point of chaos within the heavy bronze lock, and he watched as a darkness built up around the lock before Myral turned the key and opened it.

   “Lift the grate.”

   Cerryl struggled and lifted the grate, discovering that it opened on a pair of hidden hinge pins nearly as thick as his wrists.

   “Swing it back against the wall.”

   When the grate was against the wall, another bronze ring protruding from the building wall extended through the bars of the grate. Myral relocked the grate in the open position and returned the key to his purse. The two guards stood back from the square opening.

   “Did you see what I did?”

   “You did something with darkness there.”

   “Exactly.” Myral smiled. “All sewer locks are charged with chaos. I'll explain in a moment.” He turned to the guards. “Remain here until we return.”

   “Yes, ser.” The older and grizzle-bearded armsman nodded.

   Myral stepped onto the top stair within the circular opening and started downward.

   Cerryl glanced over his shoulder, back at the bronze grate that Myral had locked open, and at the pair of white lancers guarding the entrance to the main sewer tunnel. A faint smile crossed the lips of the taller and younger guard, then vanished.

   Looking back down, Cerryl followed the older mage into the darkness barely lit by the oil lamp Myral carried down the narrow and unrailed brick staircase. Their boots clicked on the hard bricks.

   The first odors-a mixture of barnyard and fish and rotten meat, or worse-almost gagged Cerryl.

   “You'll get used to it,” Myral called back over his shoulder.

   Never... I hope not. Cerryl swallowed and kept heading downward, trying not to think about the source of the foulness.

   At the bottom of the stairs, Myral took several more steps before he turned and waited.

   The main sewer was a square tunnel of red glazed bricks whose braced and squared granite arches were a good two cubits above Cerryl's head as he stood at the foot of the narrow staircase. On the left side was a walkway, about two cubits wide, except where the cubit-wide stairs descended. To the right of the walkway was the drainage way that carried the sewage, the surface of the turbid waters another cubit or so below the walkway.

   “In storms, the waters can rise halfway up the staircase.” Myral paused, then added, “You don't work in the sewers during heavy rains.”

   The younger man looked back at the stairs, imagining all that filthy water rushing through the tunnels.

   “The secondary sewers are just tall enough to walk in-sometimes-and the collectors for them are little more than covered and glazed brick trenches anywhere from one to two cubits square.”

   Cerryl decided not to ask how he was supposed to clean the collectors.

   “You won't be working the collectors to begin with. You'll start on the secondaries once I'm sure you can handle the work. Now ... we'll go a little farther, until the walkway starts to get slimy. It doesn't take long down here.”

   A dozen cubits or so farther from the stairs, Myral halted. “I'm going to demonstrate how to use chaos to clean away the filth. Watch me, with your eyes and your senses.”

   As the mage turned back toward the darkness, Cerryl could sense the buildup of chaos, a white unseen fire that seemed to flicker around the older mage, yet behind the white of chaos was a dark mist, a dilute blackness, the same as Myral had used with the lock, except there was more of it.

   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.

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.