The White Order (40 page)

In the dimness, away from the cookfire, Cerryl pulled off his white leather boots, coated in chaos dust but free from mud, and stretched out on his bedroll, his eyes on the white silk tent where Jeslek reclined on a cot. “Ohhhh ... darkness ...”

   To the east, a faint glow lighted the horizon, the red-limned light from the scattered lines of molten rock that had burst from the ground with the hills Jeslek had raised into small mountains.

   Cerryl took another long breath.

   “Even the ground feels better than a saddle,” Lyasa said wryly.

   “It's hard,” complained Kochar, sitting disconsolately on his bedroll, his boots still on. “Too hard to sleep on.”

   “Try it,” suggested Lyasa.

   “I'm going back to the fire. I'm cold.” Kochar stood and ambled back in the direction of the silk tent, its white sides an orange from the light of the slowly dying cookfire.

   The rustling murmur of lancers preparing their bedrolls and the muted talking they did conveyed a sense of the summer that had already passed in Gallos, a sense of summer dispersed by the chill breeze out of the northwest, a breeze bringing the odor of damp and decaying grass.

   Lyasa eased her bedroll closer to Cerryl's, then removed her boots and pulled her blanket up to her shoulders. “This way we can talk, and no one will think anything.”

   I'm sure they'll think something. “I doubt that.” Cerryl shivered, despite his double blankets. Feeling guilty, he eased the edge of the top blanket over Lyasa.

   “That's even better. And warmer.” The black-haired woman laughed softly. With her lips less than a span from Cerryl's face, the laugh tickled his left ear. “They will think but of two apprentices taking comfort where they may. Jeslek and Anya both are used to such, as both couple like hares, given the chance.”

   “You know this?”

   “I have been spared, saved only that I am beneath him. None are beneath Anya, not if it will serve her.”

   “I know.” Cerryl thought of poor Faltar, who saw nothing but Anya's beauty and wonderful and false smile. “I know.” After a moment, he added, “Why are you telling me this?”

   “Who else dare I tell? I am a student mage also, and any full mage who wishes me ... I cannot leave ...”

   Cerryl's throat tightened. “I'm sorry. I didn't... I thought I was the only one ... like that.”

   Lyasa offered another soft laugh, half-sweet, half-bitter. “I know that as well. We are alike, you because you have no family, and I because I am a woman with a talent for chaos. As for you...” Lyasa's voice held a regretful shrug. “I was wrong. I would be your friend. I would always be your friend, and I will give you my body, if you wish it.”

   “I do not understand. I have not asked ...” Cerryl swallowed.

   “No. Nor will you, and you and I both know the reason.”

   Cerryl was afraid he did. Leyladin. Yet he had never done more than speak with the green-eyed gray mage. “You said ...”

   “I did, and I was wrong, and that is why I am your friend, and your ally. If you can survive Sterol, and Jeslek, and Anya, you will save us all.”

   Cerryl shook his head. “I'm still a student, and every time I look, Jeslek is trying to test me in some other way.”

   “He is not testing you. He is trying to get you to make a mistake that will kill you. He dares not kill you outright, and you must be strong enough to withstand him when he succeeds Sterol as High Wizard.”

   Jeslek as High Wizard? How could he not become High Wizard with the power he already commanded? And how could Cerryl withstand that kind of power?

   Lyasa reached out and gave him a one-armed hug. “You don't have to do it alone.”

   Her words echoed in his ears even as he drifted off to sleep, savoring the comfort of her closeness, and only her closeness. “You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to do it alone.”

   Even so, a blonde mage with red highlights in her hair filled his dreams, and as he seemed to watch her walk through endless corridors, corridors he could never quite enter, he half-dreamed, half-wondered if he would ever see Leyladin again. And what he could do about it, if ever he did.

Cerryl refastened the white leather jacket against the damp wind out of the north. His eyes went back along the column of lancers stretched eastward on the Great White Highway, reined up and waiting.

   Ahead, Jeslek gathered chaos around him, so much that his jacket and trousers seemed to glitter silvered white under the midmorning gray. A light misting rain swept from the low clouds.

   A trumpet sounded, faintly at first, then more loudly. A row of armsmen in purple appeared on the hill to the north of the Great Highway.

   “So ... the Gallosians have decided upon a show of force.” Jeslek laughed, and his laugh carried easily to Cerryl. “Much good it will do them.”

   Beside the overmage, Klybel remained silent as the armsman in dark purple rode down the hill and toward the mages. He bore a polished iron oval shield, the blue-trimmed messenger's pennant drooping from the staff rising out of the lance holder. Scattered raindrops slid across the cold metal as he reined up a good thirty cubits from Jeslek.

   Cerryl massaged his neck. So far the headache was but faint.

   “You bring a message?” asked Klybel.

   “I am bid to tell you that the way of the road is yours, o mages, but only the way of the road.”

   Jeslek glanced from the messenger to the mass of armsmen on the rolling hill to the north. A crooked smile crossed his thin lips, and the misting rain swirled away from him. “You may bid your captain that the way of the road is indeed ours, and all that it takes to protect the rights of trade upon the road. And the rights of Fairhaven, long established in Candar, and respected by those of wisdom and power.” The messenger frowned. “I will so relay your message.”

   “You may also tell your captain that it would be to his advantage to proceed eastward with great care and reflect upon what he will find there.” Jeslek's eyes flashed.

   The messenger's face was like stone, stone damp with the mist that coated all the riders. “He will hear your words, o mage.”

   “He had best think upon them long and hard,” said Jeslek. “Most long and hard. You may go.”

   The messenger nodded, his jaw tight as he turned his mount and rode northward up the gentle slope to the waiting Gallosian force. “Your words will not please them,” offered Klybel. “I do not intend to please them. How many tens of years have we labored and poured gold into the Great White Highway to ensure that Candar will be strong and united?” Jeslek's eyes blazed. “Now that the road has reached the Westhorns, this ... puppy of a prefect would seize it for his own use.”

   “They outnumber our lancers greatly.” Klybel's eyes remained on the Gallosian host.

   “Numbers ...” A broad smile revealing yellowing teeth crossed Jeslek's face. “You will not have to concern yourself with numbers, Captain Klybel.”

   “As you say, ser.”

   “I do say.” Jeslek watched as the Gallosian force began to move northward, almost paralleling the line of white lancers but riding eastward, rather than westward.

   Once the purple-clad lancers had vanished behind them, Jeslek began to probe the ground again with what felt to Cerryl like tenuous darts of chaos. “Indeed, they will find much to reflect upon, and even more should they return. Even more.” He lifted his eyes and glanced at Anya, Fydel, and the three students. “This afternoon will we raise yet another set of hills to join the first.” The sun-gold eyes fixed on the square-bearded wizard. “Fydel, you are charged with following the Gallosians through your glass. I wish to know if that group of armsmen-or any other-nears us.”

   “As you command, overmage.” Fydel inclined his head.

   “I trust all this will meet the approval of the High Wizard,” Anya said mildly.

   “I was sent to use my discretion as overmage,” Jeslek returned pleasantly, although chaos boiled unseen around him.

   Unseen but not unsensed, and Cerryl shivered in the rain, and not from the cold ... or the weather.

When the winds warmed and the rains and snow fell less heavily upon the Westhorns, fewer needed the protection of Westwind, and the summer heat prostrated those of the chill heights, and their crops and their flocks.

   Lacking the dark talismans of order borne off to Recluce by Creslin, the Marshal of Westwind attempted to persuade the folk of Sarronnyn and Southwind to stand behind her and to offer more coins to her.

   As they feared the double-edged twin blades of the Westwind guards, those of the lands beyond the Westhorns pledged their allegiance yet again to the Marshal.

   Yet even as they pledged, they gathered together in the darkness they had brought to the once-fair lands of the west, and they plotted as how they would bring down the Marshal and split the plunder laid up over the generations upon the Roof of the World.

   For honor had they none, even after all the years that Westwind had protected their dishonor from the efforts of the Guild to redress the ancient wrongs.

   Following their custom of dishonor, they invited the Marshal to Southwind, where she might receive gold and tribute and grain. The Marshal traveled from her black tower to the great banquet, and flower petals rained upon her, and then arrows from behind the screens of flowers.

   The Marshal had not been without forethought, and had left upon the Roof of the World her daughter the Marshalle and the mighty arms master of the guard. And the Marshalle gathered together all the guards of Westwind and vowed that those responsible for the devastation would pay.

   As the Marshalle prepared her retribution, there came a traveling minstrel to Westwind, a minstrel known of old as of trust and worth- save the minstrel, for all that his face was of old and his voice as well, was not as he had been, but enslaved to the tyrant of Sarronnyn.

   As he sang, the minstrel lit a candle, a marvelous candle wrought as a model of Westwind-and then the candle exploded with the ancient fires of the West, and claimed the Marshalle and the arms master, and the senior guards of Westwind.

   Yet this treachery did not repay the tyrant, for the remaining guards they packed the treasures of Westwind, and they took their blades and cut a trail of blood to the sea.

   There they seized a ship and forced it to Recluce, where they laid all the coins of centuries at the feet of Creslin and swore their blades to his service ...

         Colors of White

         (Manual of the Guild at Fairhaven)

         Preface

The rain, a cold drizzle earlier in the day, had become a hot, afternoon, chaos-heated mist that cloaked all the mages-and their mounts. The white lancers walked their mounts and those of the mages through the hot mist and along the road to the east of where the three mages and students struggled with the chaos deep below the high plains of Gallos. The horses skittered sideways intermittently, demanding attention and reassurance as the ground rumbled, as irregular screaming bursts of steam perforated the rising hills less than two kays to the north.

   “Keep the chaos below the upper rocks!” snapped Jeslek-the first time Cerryl had heard any sense of urgency in the overmage's voice. “Keep it down!”

   The wavering wall of order darkness that spread to the north of the road flexed under the rising and expanding globule of reddened-white chaos.

   “More ... all of you,” grunted Anya. “You don't... give more .. . Fydel, and I'll let you fry first.”

   The darkness thickened.

   Cerryl glanced down the road, where Jeslek stood alone, a point of white amid the chaos that shimmered like light reflected from a still sea at twilight, except more brightly. As he watched, the light around Jeslek brightened even more.

   The ground rumbled with a thundering from below, shuddering so much that Cerryl could feel it through his boots.

   One of the mounts held by lancers somewhere behind them screamed.

   “Hold, you ball-less beast! Hold!”

   Cerryl took a quick step forward, trying to keep his balance and his concentration on the interworking of order and chaos.

   “Demon damn him ...” muttered Anya, half under her breath. “Demon damn him ...”

   “Quiet...” grunted Fydel.

   Sweat, the leftover moisture from the rain, and the hot mist combined in streams of water that poured down the mages' faces, even down the creamy chiseled features of the redheaded Anya, plastering her hair down across her forehead.

   The smell of brimstone raised with the steam that escaped the shifting and rising ground drifted from the north and the west across the mages and toward the lancers.

   Cerryl swallowed, trying not to gag at the odor.

   Behind him, Kochar retched.

   “You ... haven't time to retch.... Keep holding the ... barrier,” demanded Anya.

   Kochar retched again, but then an additional sense of order joined that of the others.

   The sounds of other disgruntled horses, not quite screams, punctuated the rumbling from the depths and the rippling of the ground that had been the low hills of the high grasslands.

   Gum... rrrrr....

   Cerryl blotted his brow with the back of his forearm sleeve and continued to concentrate on channeling chaos back into the depths under the rising hills and away from the road. For him, channeling was easier, and seemed more productive than straining to hold order barriers against the heat and reddish white power loosed by Jeslek.

   “Getting it...” Anya's voice was hoarse.

   “If... he doesn't loose ... more chaos ...” replied Fydel.

   “Still... holding ...”

   The brown-haired and thin-faced student mage turned another wave of chaos back, back toward the upwelling that had already become a small mountain two kays and more north of the Great White Highway.

   “No more chaos ... now,” called Jeslek. “Just... hold for a bit... not too long.”

   “Easy... for him... to say,” whispered Lyasa, the words barely reaching Cerryl.

   He nodded briefly, silently.

   Slowly, the pressure of the chaos faded ... subsided.

   “Keep holding!” ordered Jeslek.

   Cerryl blotted away more sweat, but not enough to keep the salty stuff out of the corners of his eyes, which burned anyway.

   A light gust of hot wind carried another gout of brimstone, and he swallowed back the bile that threatened to climb into his throat-or higher.

   “Better ...” said Fydel. “Better.” Anya straightened. “All right. You can rest.” Jeslek turned and began to walk, ever so slowly, back toward the other mages. He stopped and bent slightly, breathing hard, as if trying to catch his breath.

   “Even Jeslek... pushed too much.”

   “Won't see that happen much,” answered Fydel. Kochar and Lyasa exchanged glances.

   Jeslek stopped a dozen cubits from the group of mages, brushed back overlong white hair. “That's a good start for the prefect. It will give him something to worry about.” Gurrrr... rrr ...

   As if to emphasize Jeslek's words, the ground trembled ... and rippled, even as the low hills to the north continued to shudder their way upward, cutting off the direct late afternoon sun.

   The smell of brimstone continued to drift over Cerryl both from the north and the west as he studied Jeslek.

   For the first time, the overmage looked exhausted, his face drawn, almost pinched. The white hair that usually sparkled was dull and lifeless, and his face was covered with a gray stubbly beard.

   Cerryl slumped onto the wall at the side of the road, hot from chaos and indirect sun, faint stars flashing before his tired eyes, eyes that burned. After a moment, he lifted his head, wishing he had taken his water bottle when he had dismounted.

   Lyasa sat beside him, offering him some of her water. “Thank you. I wish I'd thought of it.”

   “I'll take some of yours later. There won't be much water around here for a while.”

   After taking a long and welcome swallow, Cerryl nodded. Any streams had to have been dried up or diverted or turned to steam. Heat continued to well off the high hills, or low mountains, that stretched on either side of the flat beside the Great Highway.

   Klybel rode up from the east, reining up short of Jeslek. “We still lost almost a dozen spare mounts. The smell and the unsteady ground spooks the most excitable ones. They broke their leads.”

   “We will get spare mounts.” Jeslek nodded. “Yes, you will have those spare mounts.”

   The lancer captain glanced toward the northeast, where another bank of lowering clouds promised a return of the rain. “The Gallosians will return, you think?”

   Jeslek turned toward Fydel, who stood beside his mount. “Fydel, find out where the Gallosians are.”

   “Yes, overmage.” Fydel heaved himself to his feet and walked slowly toward the lancers who held the mages' mounts.

   “We need water for the mounts,” continued Klybel. “Your mountains have moved the streams away.”

   The white-haired mage glanced toward the clouds. “The drainage ways beside the Highway here will be full of water before long. Let it come to us.”

   The lancer captain frowned momentarily. “As you command.”

   Jeslek watched as Fydel concentrated on the small glass he had set on the road wall.

   “The Gallosians are encamped ten kays to the east,” Fydel finally reported.

   “They will be back in the morning,” predicted Jeslek. “We need some rest and food.”

   “Here?” asked Klybel.

   “None of the mages-or the students-have the strength to move. If your lancers need water, send them in detachments to the southwest. That's the only safe place besides here right now.” Jeslek coughed. “Or back toward the Gallosians.”

   “The southwest.” Klybel turned his mount.

   Cerryl sat on the side wall of the Great Highway. Like Lyasa and Kochar, he was breathing hard, still trying to catch his breath.

   “Derka ... said this couldn't be done.” Lyasa moved closer to Cerryl.

   “He ... was wrong.” In how many other things was Jeslek going to prove the older mages wrong? Cerryl wondered.

   After a time, he stood and limped on feet sorer than he would have imagined toward the chestnut that held biscuits and hard cheese. He needed to eat something. Anything.