Colors of Chaos (Saga of Recluce)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  An ancient oil lamp set in a green-tinged copper bracket on the wall spilled light across the space. On one wall was a cage of iron bars with heavy wooden racks behind it. The three strongboxes behind the iron seemed almost lost in the rack shelves that could have held nearly a score.

  Freidr sat behind the table-desk, his arms on the table, waiting. Cerryl took one of the antique wooden straight-backed chairs, a chair that felt as old as the building that held it.

  “How might I help you?” Freidr offered a professional smile, but his eyes still did not quite meet Cerryl’s.

  “The trader Narst mentioned you,” Cerryl offered.

  “I’m a factor who deals with many traders.” Freidr presented an apologetic smile.

  “I am sure you do. You also deal with the prefect’s tax collectors.”

  “Every factor must do so, especially with the road taxes imposed by the Guild at Fairhaven.” Despite the chill in the room, perspiration had already begun to seep from the dark-bearded factor’s forehead.

  “Do you keep records of the taxes you pay?” Cerryl raised his eyebrows.

  “Surely you’re not suggesting…You already had the warehouse searched.”

  “I didn’t have anything searched,” Cerryl pointed out, wondering just what had been going on in Jellico that Freidr was so fearful of a young White mage.

  “No…you might as well have…The prefect’s inspectors did.”

  “Was it Pullid?” Cerryl tried to keep his tone casual.

  “He stood there, but you think he’d dirty his hands? I don’t know their names, the ones who went over the accounts. They said they were looking for goods stolen from you White mages.”

  Cerryl looked at the sweating trader, then smiled. “Why don’t you just show me the tax records?”

  “You’ll take them. Then what will I do when Pullid comes back next year?”

  “I won’t take them,” Cerryl assured him. “I’m looking for something very different. It appears…Let me just say that there are irregularities in the tariff records. It would help…and I’m sure you’d want to be helpful.” As he smiled more broadly, Cerryl felt as though he were acting just like Anya.

  Freidr sighed.

  Cerryl let his senses range ahead of the trader as the man turned and lifted out a ledger and an old wooden box, one that reeked of age.

  “Here…” The factor offered another sigh as he pushed the ledger toward Cerryl. “You can see. I’ve paid them all—every last one.”

  Cerryl scanned the receipts, mentally totaled the numbers…then frowned. One was signed with another name—Liedral.

  “Liedral—that’s your…sister…” A cold feeling settled over Cerryl, and his eyes felt like ice as he looked at the factor.

  Freidr cringed in the chair, as though he had been struck. “I did what you people wanted…what the other bearded…”

  “Fydel, you mean?” Cerryl asked.

  “That’s what he said his name was…”

  Cerryl forced himself to be calm, although he wasn’t sure why he was getting agitated. He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t even been able to see what had happened until it was over and done. You still feel guilty…because the Guild did it and you feel it was wrong? “The matter with your sister is something entirely different. This deals with golds. You have paid on the order of 15 percent of your receipts—at least is what you claim.”

  “It’s 15 percent…and it’s of everything. Pullid, he went through everything…everything. That’s what you mages require.”

  Cerryl nodded. “And he told you that he would send one of us after you if you didn’t show everything?”

  “He didn’t have to…We know that.”

  Cerryl forced a smile. “Would you mind telling me how you know that?”

  “We just do…” Freidr’s eyes flicked from side to side, never meeting Cerryl’s.

  “How long have you been paying 15 percent?”

  “I don’t know…five years…The records are there.” Despair flooded the factor’s face.

  Cerryl wanted to shake his head. “It doesn’t matter. There will be records.” He stood. “Thank you.”

  Then he paused, before looking back at Freidr. “Can you think of any other traders who had their warehouses scrutinized in the way yours has been?”

  “Ah…no…”

  “You’re lying.” Cerryl hated to do it, but he gathered enough chaos to create a small fireball above his raised left index finger.

  Freidr paled.

  “Do you recall?” Cerryl gave another Anya-like smile, still disliking himself for it.

  “I don’t…know…not for certain…but Pastid…and Triok…they were muttering something.”

  “Pastid and Triok…where might I find them?”

  “Pastid—he’s on the other side of the Market Square, where this street is, except it’s the Silver Way there, about three hundred cubits. His place is next to a coppersmith’s—Gued, I think. Triok—he’s on the Way of the Weavers, or the north part, north of the palace.”

  Cerryl inclined his head. “I trust that is correct.”

  “It is…I tell you it is.”

  “Good.”

  “Is that all, ser?”

  “That’s all.” Cerryl smiled. For now. He unlatched the door, letting his chaos senses scan the narrow passage before he opened the door and stepped out. The small hall was empty.

  Freidr followed him, at a slight distance, letting Cerryl open the front door.

  “Thank you again,” Cerryl told the factor as he left.

  The door shut quickly, and Cerryl could hear the chains rattled into place. It wasn’t absolute proof—but 15 percent? According to what Myral had told him, the highest Guild tax on merchants outside of Fairhaven, and only the large ones, was a third of that. Even the Guild tax on factors in Fairhaven was but a tenth part.

  Cerryl untied the gelding and mounted quickly. The intermittent snow had given way to a light rain of fat raindrops, splatting on the road stones. He turned his mount back westward.

  What he had discovered also raised a few questions. Did Shyren know? If not, why not? Or if he did, why hadn’t he told Jeslek? And if Shyren had told Jeslek, what sort of scheme was Jeslek attempting?

  Though Cerryl rapped on Pastid’s door, there was no answer. Cerryl rode around and down the back alley, but the rear loading doors were also locked and bolted from the inside. Finally, with the sun dropping over the western walls of the city, he headed back toward the viscount’s palace.

  The ostler took the gelding without comment. Cerryl crossed the courtyard again and walked up the steps.

  Shyren stood at the top, a lazy smile on his face. “Out for a ride, I understand?” the older mage said mildly.

  “There’s little enough for me to do in the barracks and palace,” Cerryl answered with a laugh. “So I rode around the city a bit, asked a few questions, and tried to get more familiar with it.”

  “You young mages…I suppose that’s wise. You never know where you might be going. Still…a place like Jellico has its dangers for those who don’t know its ways.” Shyren’s eyes glittered ever so slightly. “They are not what one might suppose.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. Is there any place you would suggest I take care?” Cerryl asked politely.

  “Everywhere and nowhere.” Shyren laughed softly, a sound almost sibilant. “Where coins are involved, or folk think they are, any step could be dangerous. And other lands are not near so…well tended as Fairhaven. What you would call peace is never achieved here, nor will it ever be.” The heavyset mage shrugged. “We Guild representatives do what we can, but we are limited—most limited.”

  “I can see that might be a problem.”

  “It is.” Another smile, almost regretful, crossed Shyren’s face. “I had come to tell you and Fydel that I just received a message from the High Wizard. He plans to reach Jellico in five days.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I thought you might lik
e to know.” Shyren started to turn, as if to head down the stone steps, then paused. “I would suggest great care on your rides, young Cerryl. Five days is scarce enough to learn Jellico, and White mages are not held in near so high esteem here as in Fairhaven. While all may be fair to your face, watch your back.”

  “I appreciate your words, and your concern.” Cerryl inclined his head.

  After the Guild representative had left, Cerryl rubbed his chin. Definitely a message. Do you have to worry about arrows and traps? Or worse?

  He took a deep breath and headed toward his room, his chaos senses extended. His room was empty, but the residual sense of disorder gave him the definite impression that Shyren had spent some time there. He smiled to himself. The longer he was in the Guild, the more he understood that he and perhaps Kinowin were among the very few Whites who could sense residual chaos. Why? Because you’re among the few who keep yourselves separate from chaos? Leyladin could, and probably most Blacks. Another skill to keep hidden…and if you develop more, they might be enough. But enough for what?

  He shook his head.

  As the first bell rang, he decided he needed to hurry if he wanted to wash up before the evening meal.

  LXXXIII

  CERRYL BLINKED AND let the image in the glass fade. Still nothing of substance had come from his efforts to follow Pullid and Dursus in the screeing glass. He picked up the glass, warm to the touch in the cold barracks room, and replaced it in the wardrobe. He glanced toward the barred and shuttered window. He might as well ride out—despite the wind and rain—to see if he could talk to either Triok or Pastid. Neither trader had been around for the past two days—Triok’s consort had insisted she expected him any day, while Pastid’s building remained locked.

  After reclaiming his jacket, Cerryl left his stark barracks room and made his way down the stone steps and across the rain-splashed stones of the courtyard. The ostler nodded as he walked up, then disappeared into the stable. Cerryl glanced around the courtyard and at the miniature pools of water between the paving stones, pools occasionally rippled by the light rain that still fell. While he waited, he cast his senses toward the walls but could discern only a guard and no chaos. Then he shifted his weight and glanced around again, as he had been ever since Shyren’s words about the dangers of Jellico. The real dangers of Jellico are within these walls.

  “Here he be, ser mage.” The ostler led out the gelding, still with the definitely bedraggled white and red livery.

  The streets of Jellico seemed fractionally less crowded as Cerryl rode slowly out of the gates and turned the gelding north and toward Pastid’s warehouse. Pastid remained absent, the building locked.

  With a deep breath Cerryl eased his mount back west and toward the lower hill, the back side of which held Triok’s establishment. The rain continued to spit out of the low clouds, intermittently, but the dark gray clouds promised a heavier fall before long. Cerryl continued to scan the areas through which he rode north and west of the viscount’s palace, with both his eyes and his chaos senses, feeling, somehow, somewhere, a slight increase in chaos. Was Jeslek nearing? Or something else?

  Triok’s building resembled what Cerryl would have thought a trader’s place to be, with a small and narrow two-story brick dwelling attached to a timbered warehouse with a tile roof. A muscular bearded man was standing at one end of the wagon before the loading doors, shifting bales of something from under the canvas covering the wagon bed to the open loading door of the warehouse.

  Cerryl dismounted and led the gelding toward the man. “Trader Triok?”

  “None other, ser mage,” grunted Triok as he moved another bale.

  “Your consort may have told you that I’d been trying to see you for the past few days—”

  “That she did. That she did.” Triok straightened after setting down the bale and frowned. “Don’t be knowing what you Whites be wanting of me. Pay my tariffs and taxes. Don’t go your way often, but better this way.” He gestured toward the medallion on the wagon.

  Cerryl nodded. “I just wanted to ask a few questions. You only pay one set of taxes, except for the medallion, but they’re collected by the viscount’s men—Pullid’s men, actually.”

  “Been that way for years. Afore Pullid was Zastor. Don’t remember the fellow afore him.”

  “Do you remember when the rate was a tenth?”

  Triok frowned. “Not been that long ago. Three, four years, ’cause that was the year the brigands got Siljir in the pass heading down to Passera.”

  “Do you recall when the rate went from a twentieth to a tenth part?”

  Triok laughed. “Not that old, young ser mage, not by a mighty bow shot.”

  Cerryl nodded. “How do you find the White highways?”

  “Like ’em. Don’t like the tariff, have to say.” Triok looked toward the gray sky and then the warehouse door, as if to indicate he had better matters to attend to than educating a young White mage, preferably before it began to rain even harder. “Be good if we had a road into Spidlar…once the troubles there are over,” he added quickly.

  “I’ll convey that.” Cerryl smiled. “Thank you.” He led the gelding back from the wagon slightly before remounting.

  “…what was that about?” Triok’s consort stood inside the loading door.

  “Don’t know…care less…but didn’t take many moments, leastwise…”

  Cerryl frowned. Myral had said the tariff for large outland merchants was a twentieth, but it had been collected as a tenth for years, and none in the Guild had known or cared. Somewhere over three years ago, the rate had been raised in Certis to 15 percent. Why? And why then? Wasn’t that when Rystryr became viscount? Or had that been afterward?

  He kept riding, headed eastward until he reached a larger street to take him back to the viscount’s palace, still wondering, his gray eyes scanning the streets, the scattered shops, and the mostly shuttered windows.

  Cerryl halted the gelding just before the corner of the larger street that led southward to the viscount’s palace. While he didn’t exactly sense chaos, what he did feel was unease, something he could not describe. As he studied the empty street ahead, he mustered chaos around him.

  Empty? When has any street in Jellico been empty?

  He glanced toward the top of the wall to his left, a good three cubits above his head, even mounted, not a house wall, but a wall enclosing a courtyard of some sort.

  A dark figure peered over the wall, bearing something…

  Cerryl swallowed and flung chaos, then turned to the other side and flung a second wall of chaos fire. Whhhstt!

  Sprung! Sprung!

  Crossbow bolts and chaos fire met. Both figures on the walls vanished.

  Clunk! Clunk!

  The crossbow bolts clattered along the damp paving stones. Belatedly Cerryl could feel the rain begin to mist down around him, so light as to barely cause a twinge in his skull.

  Cerryl raised the light-blurring screen and simultaneously urged his mount ahead and around the corner, raising yet more chaos, but the street remained empty for almost a block. He was breathing heavily as he rode carefully southward for a block. The street ahead, across the way that he knew led eastward to the market, was also empty, and he turned eastward to find a less direct—and more crowded—way back to the palace.

  After another few hundred cubits, with the main square in sight, he reined up, leaving the light-blurring screens up. He remained on the gelding, trying to catch his breath.

  He sniffed, smelling something beyond the sewage and filth and roasting fowl, something burning. Two wagons, each pulled by a single horse, careened down the street into the Market Square and then eastward. A building was burning to the northeast of the square, down the street where the trader Freidr had his establishment. Cerryl swallowed, then eased his mount in the direction of the wagons, reining up once more well back of the building where flames flickered from a single window.

  A group of men in gray threw buckets of water on the roo
fs of the surrounding buildings, then, as the fire did not seem to grow, began to dump buckets on the warehouse itself. The rain began to fall even more heavily, and cold water seeped down the back of Cerryl’s neck. He shivered in the saddle but did not urge the gelding any nearer to the dying fire or the men who fought it. The thin blonde woman sobbed under the overhang of the cooper’s shop, holding an infant while Cerryl watched.

  To Cerryl’s surprise, the fire guttered out, but he realized part of that was because the fire had apparently started in the office and the office walls were stone. The combination of the rain and the bucket brigade had managed to quench the flames before they spread.

  Cerryl nodded to himself—chaos fire.

  Still keeping the blur screen up, he turned his mount and headed back toward the viscount’s palace. Once inside the second courtyard, he reined up outside the stable and dismounted.

  “Ser?” asked an ostler he did not know or recognize.

  “I’m Cerryl, returning my mount for grooming and stabling.” He offered a polite smile.

  “Oh…you be one of the mages. Yes, ser. I’ll be taking him, then, and Firkflat will be back shortly.”

  Cerryl could sense the confused groom was telling the truth and handed over the reins. “Thank you.”

  “Our duty, ser. Our duty.” The groom bowed.

  Cerryl inclined his head in response, then slipped through the doorway and up the steps toward his own room—still as stark and empty as ever. Where was Shyren’s room—and was the mage around? Again, Cerryl could offer many reasons for his suspicions of Shyren, but not a single featherweight of proof.

  Cerryl wasn’t about to ask anyone, because everyone remembered a mage who asked questions. Rather, he decided to continue his explorations of the viscount’s palace.

  The corridors of the wing that held the formal dining hall were deserted, except for a single guard, who barely looked up as Cerryl walked past briskly, his pace indicating he was in a hurry to reach a definite destination. While the dining wing held other chambers, including what seemed to have been a council space of sorts, all were empty.