Recluce - Colors Of Chaos Part 83

A thin figure scuttled out under the overhang of the extended second story.

"Sers ... we have but little."

"That's what you all say," said Ferek.

"Sers ... true it is ... true indeed."

"You are the trader Willum?" asked Cerryl, reading the carved signboard.

"No, ser ..."

"Where is he?"

"He ... ser mage," stammered the thin-faced figure, "he was killed by bandits more than a year ago. I was his clerk. I help his widow and young sons."

Cerryl concealed a wince. He had no doubt who the bandits had been. He glanced toward Hiser. "Hiser, you and your men work with this fellow to round up whatever supplies are left. Have him keep track of them, and we'll use his warehouse to store them." Cerryl looked at the trembling clerk. "You work with us, and you and the widow and her children will be fine."

"Yes, ser mage ... yes, ser."

"Thank you." Cerryl nodded at Hiser, then turned to Ferek. "We need to check out the last two at the end of the short wharf there."

Ferek remounted, and half the lancers followed as Cerryl rode through the summer heat toward the still water of the back harbor, not all that far from where the smith had launched his vessel.

The vessel was still at sea, for Cerryl could not find it in his gla.s.s and would not be able to do so, he suspected, until the smith ported, wherever that might be.

The sound of the lancers' mounts echoed hollowly on the pavement, reminding Cerryl of just how deserted the city-or port town-had become. Was that what always happened in war?

He shrugged. He'd promised Leyladin to do what he had to do and say little, but he'd already said too much beyond that, he feared. His eyes landed on the warehouse ahead, apparently abandoned like the others. A long day... many long days to come.

Part IV - Colors of Change

Cx.x.xVII.

Cerryl... what do you want?" Anya asked idly from where she stood by the railing of the White Flame beside Cerryl.

"What do you mean?" Cerryl's eyes flicked from Anya toward the bow.

Just aft from the short forward raised deck, Fydel stood, the wind blowing his dark hair back, a big hand on a rigging cable, confident-appearing in the cool sea air under the bright green-blue sky.

"Jeslek wanted to be the greatest and most powerful White mage ever. What do you want?" Anya asked again.

The thin-faced mage glanced back at the headland beyond which lay Diev, now in the hands of Syandar. Eliasar had agreed that the three should return to Fairhaven with the amulet, but by ship, so that all the lancers could remain to help keep the peace in Spidlar. Cerryl had the feeling that the older arms mage had almost been happy to see them leave and allow him to get on with putting Spidlar firmly under the thumb of the Guild, as he had in Renklaar.

"I'm not sure I know," Cerryl said. "I wanted to be a White mage ever since I was a child, and I am." He shrugged and offered a wary smile.

"Cerryl, you have bigger goals than that."

"Well..." Cerryl paused. "I think Fairhaven needs to be stronger for Candar to prosper, because none of the other rulers think beyond their own borders. If they don't, sooner or later, Recluce will, in fact, rule Candar without ever sending a single armsman."

"Do you see Prefect Syrma or Viscount Rystryr allowing that?" Anya laughed, a hard and brittle sound. "They will fight their endless little wars and slaver over a few chests of golds while their merchants sell all that is dear to the traders of Recluce."

"If matters change not," Cerryl conceded, "that will happen. I'd like to change matters. I cannot say I know how, or that I could even if I did possess that knowledge. Look at Jeslek."

"You seem to be saying that Candar cannot prosper if the wars are endless,"

Anya answered. "Do you really think anyone can change what people are? Most are greedy fools. The best are smart and greedy."

"I can't gainsay that, either," Cerryl admitted. "That is why I cannot see any land, any force, but that of Fairhaven being able to impose rules that will allow prosperity for all. Nor will Candar prosper without the rules and harmony such as those of the White City."

"Do you really think that is possible?" A touch of scorn colored her voice.

"Look at Fairhaven-or even Elparta. Neither has folk begging in the streets.

They are cleaner, and the average soul is happier."

"The traders are not."

"In Fairhaven, the traders prosper." Cerryl grinned in spite of himself, wondering just how Anya would twist the conversation to her ends.

"They're as bad as those elsewhere and, given the chance, would build palaces on the backs of the poor and the Guild."

"The Guild does not give them the chance."

"The Guild cannot be everywhere." Anya tossed her head as if to dismiss Cerryl's observation. "Nor can it dictate everything to its traders, not if it wishes to hold to its powers."

That observation bothered Cerryl, another feeling that, again, Anya had more to do with the traders than anyone in the Guild knew-or, at least, wanted to pursue.

He refrained from shaking his head as he recalled how he had been dissuaded from following the missing trader and the stolen silksheen-although it was clear that trail had led to Jiolt, whose son was consorted to Anya's sister.

As the White Flame pitched through a trough, Cerryl reached out and steadied himself on the rail.

"Let us say that you," continued Anya, "or some High Wizard does unite Candar or the east of Candar. After him, then what? More squabbles and wars? What is the purpose of such a great achievement? To end up withering away like Kinowin or Myral or being killed like Jeslek? Or to turn what you have done over to another like Sterol to dither it away?"

"You think so little of Sterol?" Cerryl smiled. "Sterol is what Sterol is," Anya responded. "Just as Jeslek was." After a moment, Cerryl spoke. "You asked me, but what do you want, Anya?"

Anya flashed the smile that Cerryl distrusted. "I think we want the same thing.

We want something that gives meaning to what we have done-something that will have meaning after we are gone." She shrugged. "Is that not what anyone wants?"

Cerryl mistrusted the shrug but remained silent. "Some folk find such in their children, but that is hard for mages, and especially hard for a White mage interested in a Black."

"We've managed."

"Children would likely kill Leyladin, so strong are both of you."

Anya offered another shrug. "So you must find a meaning to your life in other fashion."

"What about you?" Cerryl countered.

"I could have children. A White can have children by a White. I could have had Jeslek's child, or yours."

Cerryl wanted nothing to do with that line of talk. "I suppose we'll have to find other means of making a mark."

"Like all the other mages who have tried, Cerryl, your mark will survive for a time, then vanish-just like this sea swallows all traces of those that travel on it."

"I will have tried."

"Just like Jeslek. Or Myral. Or Kinowin. Or Jenred the Traitor. And for what?

Best you think long about that, young Cerryl." Anya turned to watch the whitecaps-as if to say that she wished to talk no more.

After a moment, Cerryl nodded to himself and walked forward and across the gently rolling deck to the other side of the bow from Fydel. Once more, he needed to think.

Cx.x.xVIII.

The most honorable Sterol-he is now in the High Wizard's chambers." The guard- Gostar-glanced from Cerryl to Fydel, never looking at Anya, though she carried the amulet in the leather pouch.

The three walked up the steps.

Another guard, a young one Cerryl did not know, stood on the topmost landing.

He turned and rapped on the door. "Three mages to see you, ser." Upon hearing something, without turning, the guard opened the door for them to enter.

The High Wizard's room remained what it had always been-a large personal chamber that contained a desk and matching chair, several white wooden bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes, a table in the center of which was a circular screeing gla.s.s, and four chairs around the table. At the far end of the chamber was an alcove, which contained a double-width bed and a washstand.

Against the stone wall at Sterol's left hand was another small table holding but a large bronze handbell and a pair of white gloves.

Cerryl wanted to shake his head at the differences between the quarters and receiving s.p.a.ces of the High Wizard and those of the other rulers of lands in Candar. Instead, he studied Sterol-still broad-shouldered, if the shoulders were slightly more stooped, a head taller than Cerryl. Sterol's hair remained iron gray, if thinner, and his neatly trimmed beard matched his thick and short-cut iron hair. His face was ruddy, almost as if sunburned.

Brown eyes that appeared red-flecked studied Cerryl for a time, then Anya, and finally Fydel. "You bring me the amulet, I presume?"

"Who else should have it in these times," asked Anya, "save the one who held it well?" She stepped forward and extended the leather pouch.

"Thank you." Sterol took the pouch, removed the sign of his office, and slipped it over his head. The golden amulet hung around his neck, as though it had never left. He gestured to the table but did not sit but stood over the gla.s.s with his back to the open window.

The High Wizard's eyes fixed on Cerryl. "If you would be so kind as to call up the image of your smith's vessel?" Sterol's voice was smooth, so smooth that Cerryl wanted to wince.

"He is not my smith, honored Sterol, but rather Jeslek's." Cerryl offered a polite smile. "I will certainly try to locate the vessel."

The large gla.s.s on the conference table silvered over, then cleared to reveal a vessel, sails furled, moored to a black stone pier. Clouds gave the image a dark cast.

"Land's End-on Recluce," the High Wizard said flatly. His voice lowered as he asked, "How did you incompetents ever let this happen?"

The three White mages looked at the table with the mirror, then back to the High Wizard. Cerryl wasn't about to speak, not this time, and he waited, forcing his lips to remain shut.

Finally, Fydel spoke. "He built a ship that can run into the teeth of the wind.

The White Storm went aground trying to catch him."

Cerryl nodded in agreement, stepping back from the others ever so slightly.

"Why didn't they at least fire his ship?"

The other two looked at Cerryl, and he had to answer. "They weren't carrying canvas. He'd stripped the topside, and this engine thing somehow pushed or pulled them away. They skirted the sandbars all along the coast until they got to the gulf, where the winds changed. Then they lifted sail, and with the engine and sails no one could eaten up."

"Wait an instant. You said they didn't have sails."

"The sails were furled," explained Anya. Her voice was cold, cutting. "This engine device of his is as hot as chaos and bound in black iron."

"How does it work?"

"We don't know, exactly," Cerryl said, "save that it requires black iron and burns coal."

"Wonderful. Just marvelous. We now have a renegade Black wizard who can build an engine that nullifies our whole blockade of Recluce, and his ship is sitting at Land's End." Sterol sighed. "Well... you three and Jeslek did it. You'll have to live with it."

Anya raised her eyebrows.

"Really, Anya. Are you that dense? Have we ever had any success against Recluce proper?" The High Wizard smiled coldly. "You three incompetents can leave. You had better hope that the Blacks on Recluce hold the price of asylum on their fair isle as no more Black engines."

"Or ... ?" asked Anya.

"I told you. Now, all of you, please go away." Sterol fingered the gold amulet.

"So I can determine how to address this problem that you allowed the late Jeslek to create."

"We?" sputtered Fydel.

"I certainly had nothing to do with it, and I have ensured that the Guild well knows that. Good day."

Cerryl turned with the others, stepping out onto the landing. Whom could he talk to? Leyladin was still in Lydiar.

"Now what?" asked Fydel as Sterol's door closed behind them.

"I'm getting cleaned up," Anya said. "I'm certainly not waiting for Sterol to find some disagreeable ch.o.r.e for me."

"Just like him," mumbled Fydel.

Slowly, Cerryl walked down the stairs behind them, letting them get farther and farther ahead. Once he was on the White Tower's lowest level, he turned to the right and made his way back to Kinowin's door.

He knocked.

"Come in, Cerryl." The overmage's voice was strong.